Three dead as woman beheaded in France, gunman killed in second incident

A knife-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu Akbar" beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected terrorist act at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, while a man waving a gun was shot dead by police in a separate incident.

Within hours of the Nice attack, police killed a man who had threatened passersby with a handgun in Montfavet, near the southern French city of Avignon. He was also shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), according to radio station Europe 1.

Nice's mayor, Christian Estrosi, said the attack in his city had happened in or near Notre Dame church and was similar to the beheading earlier this month near Paris of teacher Samuel Paty, who had used cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a civics class.

Thursday's attacks, on the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad, came at a time of growing Muslim anger at France's defence of the right to publish the cartoons, and protesters have denounced France in street rallies in several Muslim-majority countries.

After the Nice attack, Prime Minister Jean Castex raised France's security alert to its highest level and said the government's response would be firm and implacable.

Estrosi said the Nice attacker had repeatedly shouted the phrase "Allahu Akbar" even being detained by police.

One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi said, adding that one woman had escaped from inside the church into a bar opposite the 19th century neo-Gothic building.

​ "The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained. He is on his way to hospital, he is alive," Estrosi told reporters.

"Enough is enough," he added. "It's time now for France to exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory."

With files from Reuters