The killing of a female police employee in a Paris commuter town was an attack on the French Republic, Prime Minister Jean Castex said.
The attacker, a French resident of Tunisian origin, stabbed the police administrative worker, a mother of two, at a police station in Rambouillet, just south of Paris. The attacker was shot dead by police. r
Authorities have not given a motive for the killing. President Emmanuel Macron said France had been the victim of a terrorist attack.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said he was leading the investigation because the assailant had previously scouted out the site and because of what he said during the attack.
A judicial source close to the investigation said the attacker had shouted “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is greatest”.
There have been several attacks by Islamist militants in recent years in France
Last October, a French schoolteacher was beheaded in Conflans, another commuter suburb near Paris, by a Chechen teenager who was then shot dead by police.