SABLE-SUR-SARTHE, France, March 9 (UPI) -- A jobless supply teacher surrendered Thursday after holding 20 students and two adults hostage at a French school for several hours with a fake gun.
All the hostages were released unharmed, the BBC reported.
The confrontation at the vocational school in Sable-sur-Sarthe, 140 miles southwest of Paris, began early Thursday afternoon. The man, who had worked at the school before being fired two years ago, walked in unchallenged and pulled out a gun that police later said was a fake.
An elite police unit was dispatched to the school from Paris, arriving in early evening.
A receptionist at the Colbert de Torcy high school told the BBC: "He looked normal when he walked in," and said he was allowed in as staff knew who he was.
The man has been unemployed since being fired by the school, and demanded to speak to the former French education minister and local mayor, who is the architect of an education reform program, police said.
