The police response to the crisis was controversial due to the circumstances under which Schmitt was killed and the involvement of future French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

On Thursday, 13 May 1993 at 9:27 a.m., Érick Schmitt, dressed in black and wearing a motorcycle helmet and balaclava burst into kindergarten number 8 of the Commandant Charcot school complex on Rue de la Ferme in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where 21 children aged three to four were working with their teacher to make necklaces for Mother's Day.

He also threatened to execute the children (by slitting their throats) if the authorities failed to respond promptly, but this threat was not carried out.

As a precaution, Évelyne Lambert (then a doctor and captain in the Paris Fire Brigade), who had stayed with the teacher to look after the children, was kept in the dark.

Schmitt was shot three times in the head[8] from a distance of one meter by policeman Daniel Boulanger, with officials claiming that he woke up with a start and gestured to his detonator.

[12] Charles Pasqua, present behind the scenes throughout the event, proclaimed his satisfaction at an impromptu press conference: "It was very important that the children were freed in good health.

[14] Érick Schmitt was born on 31 July 1951 in Burdeau, French Algeria, where his father was a non-commissioned officer in the army.

[12] He founded a small computer company based in Rosny-sous-Bois named France Système Maintenance Hardware SARL.

[15] A second company he founded also went bankrupt, leading to Schmitt being banned for a period of five years from managing or controlling a business enterprise.

On 3 May, he wrote on his computer the letters he would give to the police, saying that "to avoid the fate reserved for a child hostage taker, I will not allow myself to be taken alive, and I am determined to blow up everything if I fail".

[12] RAID negotiator Michel Marie saw the hostage taking as the desperate act of a man at his wits' end, wanting fame and a way to accomplish suicide by proxy.

[17] According to the testimonies of the two police officers charged with neutralizing Schmitt if he woke up during the intervention, a child, frightened by the arrival of the hooded RAID men, screamed, which woke up Schmitt, who then gestured towards his detonator[12] (the investigation would show that the bomb, consisting of 21 sticks of dynamite spread around the classroom and wrapped around his stomach in Chatterton, was not primed at this detonator[18][b]).

Police officer Daniel Boulanger fired the first shot, which was enough to neutralize Schmitt, and, to be on the safe side, two other "double tap" bullets, using a technique peculiar to intervention services.

[19] For an article published in June 1993 in "Justice", the magazine of the left-leaning Syndicat de la magistrature, six magistrates[c] were convicted of defaming Charles Pasqua.

In her deposition, she stated that she had made "a terrible racket" by moving furniture, and that she had shaken Schmitt hard, telling him to wake up.

The essence of the execution theory lies in the fact that there are no witnesses other than the two RAID officers watching Schmitt during the intervention, who saw him wake up.

[25] In 1997, she published Chronique d'une prise d'otages, co-written with Béatrice Casanova (Flammarion), which recounts the hostage-taking of which she was a victim, and the torment this tragedy caused her in particular.

[17] Nicolas Sarkozy, mayor of Neuilly, Minister of the Budget and government spokesman, was awarded the RAID medal following the hostage-taking.

Interviewed on the French TV program Faites entrer l'accusé in July 2004, journalist Jean-Pierre About, former Nanterre public prosecutor Pierre Lyon-Caen and former Hauts-de-Seine national police director Aimé Touitou claimed that Nicolas Sarkozy imposed himself on the crisis unit and journalists.

[30] In a Lundi Investigation [fr] program on 6 June 2005, Pierre Lyon-Caen looked back at the affair, referring to Sarkozy: "He had the reflex, which shows the political animal, to bring in the only PR man with him, a member of the spokesmans office at the Paris Fire Brigade, who had a camera.

[33] In 2003, Philippe Djian drew inspiration from the hostage crisis for a short story about a couple, Mise en bouche.