Knife attacker injures several people, including children, in French Alpine town

PARIS — An attacker with a knife stabbed several children and at least one adult, leaving some with life-threatening injuries, in a town in the Alps on Thursday before he was arrested, authorities said.

Interior Minster Gerald Darmanin said the attack took place in a square in the lakeside town of Annecy.

In a short tweet, he said police have detained the attacker.

“Several people including children have been injured by an individual armed with a knife in a square in Annecy,” he tweeted.

An Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorised to speak about the developing situation, said four children and two adults were wounded.

The official cautioned that the number of wounded could evolve because the full details weren’t yet clear. The official said he had no details about the gravity of the injuries.

National police also said that four children were among the wounded, and that two of them suffered life-threatening injuries. The other two children were lightly injured, police said.

Police said one adult also suffered life-threatening wounds. Police also cautioned that the injury count was evolving.

A local lawmaker, Antoine Armand, tweeted that children were attacked on a playground. He called the attack “abominable.”

In Paris, lawmakers interrupted a debate to hold a moment of silence for the victims.