A radicalised Islamist knifeman who stabbed a policewoman and then went on the run with her handgun has been shot dead by police in France. The man, named by Le Figaro as Ndiaga Dieye, aged 39, launched the attack inside a police station in La Chappelle-sur-Erdre, near the city of Nantes, around 10am - leaving her with life-threatening wounds though she is expected to survive.

He then fled on foot before launching a second attack on gendarmes several hours later, shooting one in the hand and another in the arm before also being shot.

Dieye was arrested in a serious condition but later died of his injuries. Interior minister Gerard Darmanin confirmed that he had converted to Islam inside jail in 2016 and was reported to a radicalisation programme before his release this year.

Mr Darmanin added that Dieye - who was born in France - also had psychiatric issues, and had previously been 'diagnosed with severe schizophrenia'. He refused to describe the attack as terrorism, saying only that Dieye 'wanted to attack police'. It is not being investigated as a terror attack, police sources said.

Darmanin added that Dieye had been convicted of several 'common law' offences, and had never previously been convicted of a terrorist offence.

According to BFMTV, Dieye had been jailed in 2013 on an unknown charge and served his full eight-year sentence which ended in March. He was released but ordered to undergo treatment for his schizophrenia, and was placed in an assisted living facility so probation services could monitor his care.

It is unclear how he ended up in the police station on the day of the attack, but Le Parisien says he had presented himself to police claiming to suffer 'a car problem.' It follows a series of similar attacks across France, including a female police worker who was killed by an Islamist knifeman in the Paris suburb of Rambouillet last month.

Friday's attacks saw the man 'slash the woman officer several times with a knife inside the police headquarters,' according to a local police spokesman. 'The man then grabbed the officer's pistol and fled the scene,' the spokesman said.

240 officers, including members of the elite GIGN armed response unit, have since been mobilised to search for the attacker. Local residents have been told not to leave their homes, and students have been locked down inside schools.

The wounded officer, who has not been named, was rushed to hospital with a 'very serious thigh injury which could be life threatening,' said the source.

Witnesses said they saw the attacker get into a VW Golf after the attack, but then crashed the car, got out and fled on food.

'He was brandishing the pistol taken from the police officer he stabbed,' said the town hall spokesman.

Heavily armed GIGN officers were leading the manhunt, along with police and gendarmes, and a helicopter had been deployed, the spokesman added. 

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen tweeted after the attack that 'I refuse to accept this is our daily life', adding: 'We must finally fight this barbarism and never, absolutely never get used to it.' 

It comes after a series of such attacks including in Rambouillet last month in which a 36-year-old immigrant from Tunisia stabbed a policewoman to death and was subsequently shot dead by police. 

Other attacks have included the beheading of schoolteacher Samuel Paty by a Russian-born terrorist in October last year.

The deadliest single terrorist attack ever in the country came in November 2015 when 130 people were killed in Paris.

Suicide bombers pledging allegiance to ISIS targeted the Stade de France, cafes, restaurants and the Bataclan music venue, where 90 died.

Earlier in the year, two Paris-born gunmen linked to Al-Qaeda broke into the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, leaving 12 dead and 11 wounded.

In July 2016, 86 people were killed and more than 400 injured when a 19-tonne truck was deliberately driven into crowds on the seafront promenade at Nice, in the South of France.

The terrorist turned out to be a radicalised Tunisian immigrant who was shot dead by police.

During the same month, two Isis terrorists murdered an 86-year-old Catholic priest during a church service in Normandy.

There have been frequent knife attacks on the forces of law and order, leading to the deaths of serving police.

In October 2019, a radicalised computer operative working at the Paris Prefecture in central Paris stabbed four of his colleagues to death.

The attacker – who was also shot dead – turned out to be a Muslim convert who kept extremist Al-Qaeda and Islamic State literature and images on his computer.

References:

OpIndia