Counterterrorism authorities have taken charge of the investigation into a knife attack in Paris as the Islamic State group claimed the attacker as one of its "soldiers".
Photo: AFP
A man killed a passer-by and wounded four others in the heart of Paris before being shot dead by police, French authorities said.
Paris police said the attacker was armed with a knife and targeted five people in the second district, a retail and dining precinct that is also home to the capital's opera.
One person was killed and two were seriously injured.
The other two suffered less serious injuries.
The attacker was shot dead by police. His identity and motives are not known.
Paris police officers evacuated people from some buildings in the Right Bank neighbourhood after the attack.
Bar patrons and opera-goers described surprise and confusion in the immediate area.
Beyond the police cordon, however, crowds still filled nearby cafes and the city's night life resumed its normal pace soon after the attack.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said counterterrorism authorities were leading the investigation on potential charges of murder and attempted murder in connection with terrorist motives.
Mr Molins said the decision was made due to the style of the attack and on the accounts of witnesses who said the attacker cried 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great in Arabic) during the incident.
"Given the modus operandi, we have turned this over to the counterterrorist section of the Paris prosecutor's office," Mr Molins told reporters from the scene.
Forensic officers get ready as they arrive to inspect the area in Monsigny street in Paris centre after one person was killed and several injured by a man armed with a knife, who was shot dead by police in Paris. Photo: AFP
The Islamic State group's Aamaq news agency said in a statement on early Sunday that the assailant carried out the attack in response to the group's calls for supporters to target members of the United States-led military coalition squeezing the extremists out of Iraq and Syria.
The Aamaq statement did not provide evidence for its claim or details on the assailant's identity.
France's military has been active in the coalition since 2014, and Islamic State adherents have killed more than 200 people in France in recent years, including the 130 who died in the coordinated November 2015 attacks in Paris.
President Emmanuel Macron tweeted his praise for police who "neutralised the terrorist".
"France is once again paying the price of blood but will not cede an inch to enemies of freedom," Mr Macron said.
France's BFM television interviewed an unnamed witness in a restaurant who said a young woman was at the entrance when "a man arrived and attacked her with a knife".
A friend came to her aid and the attacker left, "hitting on all the doors, all the shops," the witness told BFM.
He turned onto another street, and everyone scattered, the witness said.
France's Interior Minister Gerard Collomb denounced the "odious attack" in a tweet.
France has been on high alert as a series of attacks commissioned or inspired by Islamic State have hit the country over the past three years in which dozens of people have been killed.
- ABC
