Man stabs several people in southeastern France, authorities say

A man wielding a knife stabbed several people, including children, in southeastern France on Thursday, French authorities said.

The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, said on Twitter that the man had injured several people in a park in Annecy, a city of about 130,000 inhabitants in southeastern France. The severity of the attacker’s injuries and motive were not immediately clear, nor was the age of the children he stabbed.

Mr Darmanin said a suspect had been arrested.

Antoine Armand, a legislator for the Haute-Savoie region, including Annecy, said on Twitter that there had been a “horrific knife attack on children in a playground” in the city.

“We know very little at this stage,” Mr Armand said.

Local authorities said a police operation was underway in the Jardins de l’Europe, a popular lakeside park in Annecy, and asked the public to stay away from the area.

Although terrorist attacks have faded from the news in France in recent years, the country is still on high alert and authorities say police and intelligence services regularly thwart plots. While the motive for Thursday’s stabbings was unknown, France was hit by large-scale Islamist terrorist attacks in 2015 and 2016, followed by a series of smaller but still deadly shootings and stabbings in subsequent years, often carried out by lone attackers.