TREBES: At least three people were killed Friday when a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group went on a shooting spree and held people hostage in a supermarket in southwest France before being shot dead by police.
“Our country has suffered a terrorist attack,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address.
Five people were also shot and injured, two of them in a critical condition, a source close to the investigation said.
A police officer who took the place of a female hostage is “fighting for his life”, Macron added, hailing the man as a hero.
“He saved lives and honoured his colleagues and his country.”
The other man in a critical condition is the driver of a car hijacked by the attacker, who authorities have named as 26-year-old Radouane Lakdim.
The shooting spree comes with France still on high alert following a string of militant assaults since 2015 that have claimed more than 240 lives.
Lakdim, a drug dealer monitored as a possible extremist, carried out three separate shootings in the medieval town of Carcassonne and in nearby Trebes where he ended his rampage by taking hostages at a supermarket.
“We had monitored him and did not think he had been radicalised. He was already under surveillance when he suddenly decided to act,” Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told reporters after flying to the scene.
Said by security sources to have Moroccan nationality, Lakdim first hijacked a car in Carcassonne, killing a passenger and injuring the driver, before shooting and injuring a policeman who was out jogging with colleagues.
He then drove to a Super U supermarket in the sleepy town of Trebes, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) as he stormed in, a witness reported.
There he killed another two people and took hostages for more than three hours, armed with a knife and a gun, according to survivors. Another witness said he had grenades.
Most of the hostages managed to escape but Lakdim kept one woman back as a human shield.
The heroic officer, one of a group who had rushed to the scene, offered to take her place while police negotiated with Lakdim, who asked for unidentified prisoners to be released.
Lakdim shot the policeman, prompting elite anti-terror officers to swoop on the building and shoot the attacker dead.
Another officer from the anti-terror force was also injured during the raid.
“People were in complete peace here,” Collomb said in Trebes, a picturesque town of 5,000 people along the famed Canal du Midi.
“No one could have imagined that there could be an attack.”
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that the Eiffel Tower would switch off its light at midnight to honour the victims.
Supermarket terror
The Islamic State group claimed the attack was in response to its call to target Western enemies — as is customary when the assailant has pledged allegiance to the militant group.
Friday’s violence took place in a part of France still scarred by a killing spree in 2012 in the city of Toulouse and nearby Montauban where another militant, Merah, shot dead seven people including three Jewish schoolchildren.
France also suffered major attacks in Paris in November 2015 when IS militants killed 130 people in bombings and shootings at bars, restaurants, the Bataclan concert venue and the national stadium.
