Updated | Eight injured in French school shooting, teenage boy arrested

A shooting has taken place at a high school in the small southern French town of Grasse, injuring eight people, the French interior ministry has confirmed.

According to an interior ministry spokesperson, three people were slightly injured by shrapnel from the shooting, while other five suffered minor injuries from the chaos that ensued.

Police have arrested a main suspect – a 17-year-old pupil at the high-school. Initial reports claimed a second person was possibly on the run, but a spokesperson for the interior ministry later confirmed that the 17-year-old had acted alone.

According to Le Figaro, the suspect is the son of an elected representative of the city of Grasse.

He was in possession of a rifle, a pistol, a revolver and two grenades, and is said to be obsessed with the Columbine shooting, having published several posts on the event on social media.

In 1999, two high-school students in the Unites States killed two peers and a teacher in a school shooting, before committing suicide.

However, he was previously unknown to security authorities, police have confirmed.

The suspect reportedly opened fire on the headmaster at the Alexis de Tocqueville school. Christian Estrosi, president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region around Grasse, confirmed with France Info radio that the headmaster had been injured, but his injuries were not life-threatening.

After meeting the wounded headmaster, Estrosi explained that the man had confronted the pupil, who was already in the school, and tried to calm him down, but he was not successful.

#Grasse @AcademieNice demande aux parents de ne pas aller chercher leurs enfants. Ils sont pris en charge dans les établissements scolaires. pic.twitter.com/ljn7NCN340

— Ministère Intérieur (@Place_Beauvau) March 16, 2017

Estrosi said it was "inconceivable that one can return to a school with weapons or firearms", adding that he would ask the Minister of National Education and the prefects for a meeting to "organise a filtering system so that the school remains a sanctuary of the Republic".

Le Figaro reported that security forces had defused an explosive device composed of black powder that had been left in the school.

Local emergency services advised residents on Twitter to stay at home as the government launched its mobile telephone application warning of a "terrorist" attack. However, Grasse town hall said it was not terror related. This was echoed by Estrosi, who said that that incident was “not at all in the path of terrorism.”

The government minister for victims affairs, Juliette Meadel, said via social media that all students were safe.

The interior ministry has advised parents not to go search for their children, saying that they were in the care of school officials.

The Grasse shooting comes less than six weeks before the two-round presidential election on 23 April and 7 May.

France remains in a state of emergency after a series of terror attacks including an IS-claimed massacre in Paris in November 2015 in which 130 people died and a truck attack in Nice in July last year.