Two women have been stabbed to death and their assailant has been shot dead by a soldier in the southern French port city of Marseille in an attack claimed by Islamic State.
Police sources say the suspect shouted "Allahu Akbar" in Arabic as he carried out his attack on the women, aged 17 and 20, at Marseille's main railway station.
Two police sources say one had her throat slit while the other was stabbed in the chest and stomach.
An IS militant was responsible for the attack, the group's Amaq news agency said later.
The assailant was shot dead by a soldier from a military Sentinelle patrol, a force deployed across the country as part of a state of emergency declared after Islamist attacks that began almost two years ago.
About 200 police officers had cordoned off the area and all roads were closed to traffic.
The suspect appeared to go by several identities, Marseille mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin told reporters on Sunday.
"I think it was a terrorist attack and the individual who was killed seems to have had several identities," said Gaudin.
A police source added that a digital analysis of the suspect's fingerprints came up with several aliases.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, who was also addressing reporters in Marseille along with Gaudin, was earlier cautious about the nature of the act.
"This could be of a terrorist nature, but we cannot confirm it fully at this stage," Collomb said.
A witness said she saw a man take out a knife from his sleeve and then stab a young girl and then a second woman, shouting what could have been "Allahu Akbar".
Two police sources said the attacker had been carrying a butcher's knife, was around 30 years old and of North African appearance. One source said he was known to police for common law crimes.
"We have generally avoided these sorts of attacks in Marseille," regional president Renaud Muselier, who was speaking from the site of the killings, told BFM TV.
"I think the security services responded extremely quickly. It's difficult to do more because when you see the distance between the two bodies and the attacker it's only 10 metres, so they intervened quickly."
President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter he was "disgusted by this barbaric act" and praised the calmness and efficiency of security forces, including the military.
