French police kill suspect after 5 hurt in Marseille knife attack

French police killed a man suspected of stabbing five people in Marseille. Photo / Christophe Simon, AFP

French police have killed a man suspected of stabbing five people in the southern port city of Marseille, 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 with his son, who was stabbed “in the back”.

While both father and son were seriously hurt, “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 “neutralised” 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 towards 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 witness 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 a police officer.

Police cordoned off the area, close to Marseille’s port.

The area is the site of several drug-dealing spots, notorious for street consumption of cocaine as well as drug-related crime.

– Agence France-Presse