PARIS, Jan 3 — French police shot dead a knife-wielding man who killed one person and injured at least two others in a park in a suburb south of Paris today, police and sources close to the inquiry said.

The man had attacked "several people” in a park in Villejuif before he was "neutralised”, the Paris police department said.

Sources close to the investigation told AFP one of the victims had later died.

The attacker was shot dead by police in a neighbouring suburb. The attacker’s motive has not been made clear.

At least two other people were wounded, one of them seriously, a source added.

The number two at the interior ministry, Laurent Nunez, travelled to the scene of the stabbings accompanied by Paris police chief Didier Lallement.

France has been hard hit by a string of attacks, many by jihadist extremists, since 2015, with more than 250 killed in total.

Most recently, a police staff member who had converted to a radical version of Islam stabbed four colleagues to death at the Paris police headquarters last October. — AFP