Knife attacker kills man in suburb before he is shot dead

A knife-wielding man ran amok Friday in a park south of Paris, killing a man walking with his wife and wounding two other people before being shot dead by police, officials said.

The Paris police department said the man, identified as 22-year-old Nathan C., attacked “several people” around lunchtime in the suburb of Villejuif.

Some managed to evade him but the man claimed at least one life — that of a 56-year-old Villejuif resident, according to the town’s mayor Franck Le Bohellec.

The victim “was walking with his wife when the attacker approached; he wanted to protect his wife” and was stabbed, the mayor explained.

According to a source close to the enquiry, another man was seriously wounded and a woman sustained light injuries.

The assailant then fled to the neighbouring suburb of Hay-les-Roses, where he was shot dead by police.

A picture sent to AFP showed a man in a long black garment lying on his back at an intersection.

“We heard screams, then we heard three shots,” said Rouane Yazid, 40, the owner of a garage nearby.

“I went outside to see. Then there were five or six more shots and then sirens. We barricaded ourselves in the garage,” he told AFP.