2 attackers slain, priest dead in France

PARIS—Two attackers killed a priest with a blade and seriously wounded another hostage in a church in northern France on Tuesday before the assailants were shot dead by French police.

There were no immediate details on the identity or motives of the two assailants but the investigation was handed to the antiterrorist unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office.

A police source said it ap- peared that the assailants had slit the priest’s throat.

“At one point, the two assailants came out of the church and that’s when they were killed by the BRI elite force,” an interior ministry spokesperson said, referring to France’s specialized police group.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls branded the attack “barbaric” and said it was a blow to all Catholics and the whole of France.

“We will stand together,” Valls said on Twitter.

The attack is the latest in a string of deadly assaults in Europe.

The Normandy attack came 12 days after a 31-year-old Tunisian plowed his truck into a crowd of revelers in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people. Islamic State claimed that attack.

The two assailants launched their attack by taking five peo- ple hostage inside the church in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, south of Rouen.

French President Francois Hollande was on his way to the site of the attack.

“Horror. Everything is being done to trigger a war of religions,” tweeted Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former conservative prime minister who now heads the Senate’s foreign affairs committee.