A woman was beheaded by an attacker with a knife, who also killed two other people, at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, 29 October, police said, as per a Reuters report.
Estrosi said the attacker had repeatedly shouted the phrase “Allahu Akbar”, even after he had been detained by police.
Within hours of the Nice attack, police killed a man who had threatened passersby with a handgun in Montfavet, near the southern French city of Avignon. He was also shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest), according to radio station Europe 1.
City Mayor Christian Estrosi stated on Twitter that the knife attack had happened in or near the city’s Notre Dame church and that the French authorities had detained the attacker. A police source informed Reuters that a woman was decapitated.
One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi said, adding that a woman had tried to escape from inside the church and had fled into a bar opposite the 19th century neo-Gothic building.
“The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his way to hospital, he is alive,” Estrosi told reporters.
A police source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.
Mr. Estrosi said the victims had been killed in a “horrible way”.
“The methods match, without doubt, those used against the brave teacher in Conflans Sainte Honorine, Samuel Paty,” he said, referring to a French teacher beheaded earlier this month in an attack in a suburb of Paris.
Mr.Estrosi said a woman had tried to escape from inside the church and had fled into a bar opposite the building.
The French anti-terrorist prosecutor’s department said it had been asked to investigate the attack.
