Seven people have been injured in Paris after a man attacked people in the street with a knife and an iron bar.
Four people were seriously injured, according to reports.
The attack happened at around 11pm local time on the banks of a canal in the city’s 19th district.
Witnesses nearby, who were playing a game of pétanque, threw balls at the attacker in an attempt to stop him.
The man, who is believed to be Afghan, was later arrested by police. The incident is not currently being treated as a terrorist attack, as BBC reports.
Two men and a woman were initially stabbed by the attacker near the MK2 cinema on the qual de Loire, along the Ourcq canal in the north-east of the French capital.
An eyewitness, Youssef Najah, 28, was walking along the canal when he saw a man running and holding a knife believed to be 25-30cm (10-11 inches) long.
He said:
There were around 20 people chasing him. They started throwing pétanque balls at him.
Around four or five balls hit him in the head, but they weren’t able to stop him.
The attacker then injured two British tourists in a nearby street, reports say.
A security guard at one of the cinemas along the canal said he saw the man throw an iron bar at the people chasing him after he had already assaulting some people, before taking out a knife.
A statement from the UK Foreign Office said:
We are urgently investigating this incident and are in close contact with the French authorities.
A French police source said:
At this stage, there is nothing to indicate that it could be a terrorist attack.
The victims were taken to local hospital, where their conditions are described as ‘serious but not life threatening’, according to MailOnline.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.