Knifeman gunned down in frenzy of police machine gun fire in Bordeaux (2024)

A knifeman was shot dead by police machine gun fire in Bordeaux tonight after he allegedly stabbed one passer-by to death and wounded another.

The bloodbath unfolded just before 8pm on Wednesday in the south-west French city, at end of the evening rush hour.

'A police officer used his machine gun to kill the assailant on the Left Bank of the Garonne river, just after he had attacks by the city hall,' said an investigating source.

TV journalist Amaury Bucco posted a video of one of the alleged stabbings, saying the attacker was a 'man dressed in a djellaba and armed with a knife' close to the Pont de Pierre [Peter Bridge].

There was no early indication as to the motive of the stabbings, but it came on a night of high tension across France, following warnings of an attack on football stadium by ISIS.

Local prosecutors confirmed that the attacker was dead, along with one of his victims.

A third person suffered 'very serious stab wounds,' and was in intensive care, said the source at the Bordeaux prosecutors office.

Witnesses said they saw the knifeman 'attack pedestrians with a bladed weapon after telling them off for drinking.'

Prosecutors confirmed that the dead person stabbed in the throat was an Algerian national, aged 36.

The investigating source said: 'The man was set upon in Place de la Bourse [Stock Exchange Square] and was stabbed alongside at least two others.

'The other two were wounded and taken to Bordeaux University Hospital, but he died at the scene.

'The attacker had reproached a group of North African people for having a drink – possibly because they should have been fasting during Ramadan.'

Muslims avoid all food and drink during the Ramadan fast. The period of religious prayer ended April 9 this year.

One police source said the attack had 'no terrorist connotation for the moment'.

The source said it was likely to be 'a brawl with an unknown motive'.

Security concerns are high in France as Paris prepares to host the Olympic Games in July and August.

Wednesday's attack was the latest of several deadly attacks to shock France in recent years.

On February 3, three people were injured in a knife attack at Paris's Gare de Lyon railway station. Police said a suspect with psychiatric problems was arrested in that case.

The deadliest single terrorist attack ever in the country came in November 2015 when 130 people were killed during one night in Paris.

Suicide bombers pledging allegiance to ISIS targeted the Stade de France, cafés, restaurants and the Bataclan music venue, where 90 died.

Earlier in the year, two Paris-born gunmen linked to Al-Qaeda broke into the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, leaving 17 people dead inside and three outside.

In July 2016, 86 people were called and more than 400 injured when a 19 tonne truck was deliberately driven into crowds on the seafront promenade at Nice, on the Mediterranean coast.

During the same month, two Isis terrorists murdered an 86-year-old Catholic priest during a church service in Normandy.

In October 2020, three people were stabbed to death by a Tunisian immigrant in the Notre Dame basilica in Nice.

There have also been frequent knife attacks on the forces of law and order, leading to the deaths of serving police.

Terrorists have also targeted teachers, such as Samuel Paty, who was decapitated in the greater Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in 2020.