MARSEILLE: French police on Tuesday killed a man suspected of stabbing five people in the southern port city of Marseille, one of whom is in critical condition, a public prosecutor said.
The assailant, a Tunisian national with legal status in France, stabbed several people at a hotel that had just evicted him for non-payment, then attacked several others on a busy shopping street, prosecutor Nicolas Bessone told reporters.
“It would appear that he blindly and gratuitously attempted to strike people,” Bessone said.
The man first stabbed his roommate, leaving the victim in critical condition, the prosecutor said.
He then attacked the hotel’s manager, who fled into the street along with his son, who was stabbed “in the back.”
While both father and son were seriously hurt, but “their lives are not believed to be in danger,” Bessone said.
The man then continued what prosecutors called a “criminal rampage” on a crowded street, injuring at least two people in the face with a baton he carried along with two knives.
Witnesses said he shouted “religious and incoherent things,” a judicial source said, adding that there were no grounds for France’s anti-terror unit PNAT to get involved in the case.
A police patrol armed with tasers and automatic weapons in the area intervened and ordered him to drop his weapons, but when he refused they “neutralized” him, the prosecutor said.
A video published on TikTok by an anonymous user appears to show the man facing four plainclothes police for around 20 seconds before rushing toward them. They then opened fire. Seven shots can be heard on the video.
A resident told AFP that police arrived “very quickly” at the scene, and that the man had tried to attack them with a knife. One policeman shouted “stop, stop,” the witness said.
Another eyewitness told AFP the man was holding “two large butcher knives.”
The man died despite efforts to resuscitate him.
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into attempted murder and attempted murder of police officer.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is to travel to Marseille on Tuesday evening, with a visit to the city’s police headquarters planned, his office said.
Police cordoned off the area, close to Marseille’s port, and put up a forensic tent in front of a fast-food restaurant.
The area is the site of several drug dealing spots, notorious for street consumption of cocaine as well as drug-related crime.