Knife-wielding man goes on rampage in central Paris

French police arrested a man who injured seven people in a knife attack in central Paris late on Sunday.

Four of the victims were in a critical condition, police said. Two British tourists are among the injured.

Bystanders tried to stop the attack by throwing petanque balls at the man, who was brandishing a large knife and an iron bar.

Police said the man was an Afghan national.

He attacked strangers but “nothing at this stage shows signs of a terrorist nature”, a judicial source said.

The attack took place on the banks of the Bassin de la Villette just after 11pm. The area is popular with locals and tourists for its cafes, cinemas and cultural venues.

Witness Youssef Najah, 28, said he was walking beside the canal when he saw a man running with a knife of up to 30 centimetres long.

“There were about 20 people chasing him. They started throwing petanque balls at him,” Mr Najah said, referring to the sport popular in France, played with hollow steel balls.

“About four or five balls hit him in the head but they weren’t able to stop him.”

The attacker fled into an alleyway, where he “tried to hide behind two British tourists”, Mr Najah said. “We said to them, ‘Watch out, he has a knife’. But they didn’t react.”

The knifeman then attacked them, Mr Najah said.

A cinema security guard said he saw the attacker running away from two men who were trying to stop him.

“He had an iron bar in his hand, which he threw at the men chasing him, then he took out a knife,” the guard said.

The UK Foreign Office said it was “urgently investigating this incident”.

It is the latest in a series of knife attacks in France in recent months, with terrorism being ruled out in most cases.

On August 23, a man stabbed his mother and sister to death and seriously injured another person in a town near Paris before being shot dead by police.

Authorities said the man, 36, had serious mental health problems and had been on a terrorism watch list since 2016.