On Friday, in Southwest France during a killing spree, three people were killed and sixteen people were hurt, two seriously, by a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group, President Emmanuel Macron said.
Five people were shot and wounded, including two in a critical condition.
One police officer who took the place of a female hostage is “fighting for his life”, Macron said in a televised address following the shootings in Carcassonne and Trebes, hailing the man as a hero.
The other gravely injured person was the driver of a car hijacked by the gunman. The passenger of the car was killed.
“Our country has suffered an Islamist terrorist attack,” the president added.
The suspect is a 26-year-old drug dealer monitored as a possible Islamic extremist. He carried out three separate shootings, ending his spree at a supermarket in Trebes where he took hostages.
Gerard Collomb the Interior Minister said the gunman, Radouane Lakdim, who is allegedly a Moroccan, had been monitored on the suspicion of having been radicalised but had ultimately been deemed not to pose a threat.
France remains on high alert after a wave of Jihadist attacks claimed more than 240 lives since 2015.