The body of the victim was found around 6:40 am on the public road near his former primary school in Clessé (Saône-et-Loire), said the gendarmerie. The body showed numerous traces of violence, as well as a knife planted at the level of the neck at the time of its discovery.
Her 14-year-old boyfriend was taken into custody shortly after the discovery of the body, according to the same source, which did not give more details on the suspect and the possible circumstances of the tragedy.
The investigators favor the track of a breakup, according to a source close to the file, which specifies that the teenager had disappeared since Wednesday evening.
According to the rector of the Dijon Academy, Pierre N’Gahane, the young girl was in fourth grade at the college of Lugny, a town near her village of Clessé, where she had completed all her primary schooling.
“What happened is totally incomprehensible,” he told BFMTV, adding that “no report of harassment” had been recorded in the teenager’s college.
“She was a problem-free child who worked well,” he added. Asked about reports that she had just experienced a painful breakup, the rector said it was “possible”, without wishing to comment further.
– Psychological cell –
In a statement, Mr N’Gahane expressed his “deep sadness” and “strong emotion” at the tragic death, expressing his sincere condolences to the family and loved ones of the victim.
The rector and the secretary general of the national education services of Saône-et-Loire Mayalen Laxague went to the Victor Hugo college in Lugny in the morning.
A psychological cell has been set up for the students and teachers of the establishment, said the rectorate.
In Clessé, a wine-growing village of 850 inhabitants located about fifteen km north of Mâcon, the primary school that the teenager had attended was however closed on Thursday. In front of the school, a bouquet of white and pink roses was hastily fixed on a railing delimiting the sidewalk, noted an AFP journalist.
Not far away, a stain of blood could still be seen, and four yellow circles had been drawn on the ground by the investigators on the road leading to the school.
“It’s a horrible day,” Clessé mayor Jean-Pierre Chevrier told reporters. The victim’s family is “appreciated in Clessé”, he added, saying that he knew the victim, a “very nice only girl like her parents”.
The research section of the Dijon gendarmerie deployed an important device on the spot at the start of the morning.
The public prosecutor in Mâcon, Éric Jallet, who went there in the morning, will hold a press conference at 6:00 p.m. in Mâcon.
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