A TEACHER was knifed to death today by a man at a high school in northern France.

Another teacher and a security guard were critically wounded in the attack at Gambetta high school in the city of Arras, 115 miles north of the French capital Paris.

French anti-terror prosecutors said they were investigating charges including terror-related murder and attempted murder against the as-yet unnamed suspect, who was arrested at the scene.

Police said the suspect was a Russian national of Chechen origin.

Sliman Hamzi, a police officer who was one of the first on the scene said he was alerted by another officer shouting “someone is attacking with a knife.”

Mr Hamzi said he rushed to the school and saw a male victim lying on the ground outside the school and the attacker being taken away.

“Other colleagues arrived quickly but unfortunately couldn't save the victim,” he said.

Martin Doussau, a philosophy teacher at the school, said the attacker appeared to be hunting for a history teacher.

He said: “I was chased by the attacker who asked me if I teach history. [He said:] ‘Are you a history teacher, are you a history teacher?’”

Mr Doussau barricaded himself behind a door until police used a stun gun to subdue the attacker.

The attack came three years after Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher was beheaded outside a school in suburban Paris by an 18-year-old. 

Julie Duhamel, an official with the Unsa teachers’ union in the Pas-de-Calais region, which includes Arras, told Franceinfo radio that teachers had noted the suspect’s radicalisation a few years ago. 

The suspect’s brother has reportedly also been arrested.