On Wednesday, July 15, 2026, the children’s court in Chaumont (Haute-Marne) will sentence behind closed doors the teenager accused of murdering Mélanie Grapinet, a 31-year-old assistant who was fatally stabbed in front of the college where she worked in Nogent. It was June 10, 2025.
On June 10, 2025, Mélanie Grapinet died after being stabbed seven times at the entrance to the College Françoise-Dolto in Nogent (Haute-Marne). The death of the 31-year-old education assistant caused strong emotions not only in the city of 3,500 residents, but also far beyond its borders.
Just over a year after the events, the teenager will appear before the juvenile court in Chaumont on Wednesday, July 15, 2026. At the time of the events, this student, who was 14 years old and then in third grade at the institution, was not eligible to appear in juvenile court due to his age.
During a press conference organized the day after the events, Chaumont prosecutor Denis Devallois provided some information from where the teenager was being held. He explained that he “wanted to target the manager” more “any”, according to him, “no special complaints” towards Melanie Grapine. According to the prosecutor, “he could no longer tolerate the behavior of his superiors in general,” condemning “different attitudes depending on students.”
The only connection established by the accused was the fact that they were “gave a lecture to the boss on Friday, June 6, while he was kissing his girlfriend. This boss is not the one who will become his victim,” then the prosecutor added. The murder weapon is “Kitchen knife 34 cm and blade 20 cm”. The teenager, who admitted the facts while in police custody, says he voluntarily chose the most important knife in his house. “cause the greatest damage.”
On the day of the incident, there were gendarmes in front of the institution who carried out a surprise check of the students’ bags. One of them, while detaining a teenager, received a hand injury, as a result of which he was completely disabled for ten days.
Student charged “the murder of a person entrusted with a public service mission” aggravating circumstance and placed in the status of an assisted witness “aggravated violence” at the policeman who arrested him. He was then placed on remand in the juvenile section of the detention center.
His lawyer Me Antoine Chateau said at the time that he distanced himself from some of the prosecutor’s statements, emphasizing the need for a psychological and psychiatric examination. When asked, he did not want to talk until after the trial.
Mélanie Grapinet entered College Françoise-Dolto at the start of the 2024 academic year. Before that, she worked as a hairdresser. At the time, she was the mother of a four-year-old boy. Relatives described her as “shining man”, “wonderful companion”. A few days after the events, the White March gathered about 1,500 people in Nogent. The young woman was posthumously awarded the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor, and her son became a ward of the Nation.
The closed hearing in Chaumont will last three days. The acts for which a teenager is convicted are punishable by life imprisonment. But because of his age at the time of discovery, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.