‘Terrorist’ attack at market in France leaves one dead

A man went on a stabbing rampage in a small city in France on Saturday, killing one person and injuring several more in what President Emmanuel Macron called “an Islamist terrorist attack.”

“It was a terrorist attack, there’s no doubt – an Islamist terrorist attack,” he said, adding that the government was determined “to root out terrorism in our country.” Police said they were investigating the stabbing as a terrorist attack.

The man, identified by France’s interior minister as an Algerian national who had been flagged to return to his home country, targeted a market in Mulhouse, a city about 70 miles south of Strasbourg, near France’s borders with Germany and Switzerland. As he began his attack, the 37-year-old was heard shouting, “Allahu akbar,” according to France’s antiterrorism police. The Arabic phrase, meaning “God is great,” is an everyday expression used in religious and nonreligious settings alike, but has also become a war cry in some terrorist attacks by Islamic militants.

A civilian who tried to stop the man was killed, police said. Three police officers were also injured, two of them seriously.

The man, who was arrested at the scene, has not been identified by name but was on France’s terrorist watch list, Nicolas Heitz, Mulhouse’s prosecutor, told French media. He was registered on a list of people the government is monitoring for potential radicalization, and who by law are obligated to leave French territory after authorities have rejected their residence or asylum applications, according to Heitz.

France had asked Algerian authorities, including the consulate, to repatriate the man, but they did not comply with the country’s requests, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told TF1 television news.

Algerian authorities were not immediately available for comment because of the late hour.

Retailleau later traveled to Mulhouse, where he surveyed the shuttered market.

“Horror has just swept over our city,” Michèle Lutz, Mulhouse’s mayor, said in a post on Facebook.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.