'I've ruined my life,' French pupil shouted after killing teacher

The 16-year-old pupil who stabbed a teacher to death in a French school on Wednesday told investigators that a voice in his head had told him to do it, a public prosecutor said on Thursday.

Prosecutor Jerome Bourrier told a news conference that the attacker used a kitchen knife to kill his Spanish-language teacher in class, with one thrust, at his school in the high-end beach resort town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz. The boy shouted "I have ruined my life, everything is finished" after the attack, Bourrier said.

French schools observed a minute of silence on Thursday in memory of the victim. "Her name was Agnes Lassalle. She died, yesterday, in a classroom in a high school in Saint-Jean-de-Luz," Education Minister Pap Ndiaye told pupils in a school in eastern France.

"Today is the time for emotion and solidarity," he said.