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A person known to the French authorities as a radical Islamist with mental health troubles stabbed a German tourist to death and wounded two people in central Paris on Saturday before being arrested, officials said.

The attack took place close to the Eiffel Tower during a busy late weekend night and came with the country on its highest alert for attacks as tensions rise against the background of the war between Israel and Hamas.

"We will not give in to terrorism," Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the attack.

French anti-terror prosecutors said that they would now take on the investigation.

The Paris prosecutor's office said the attacker, born in 1997, is French and has been arrested in an investigation into murder and attempted murder.

Darmanin said the man had already been sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for planning another attack which he failed to carry out.

"A man attacked a couple who were foreign tourists. A German tourist who was born in the Philippines died from the stabbing," he said.

A taxi driver who witnessed the scene intervened, Darmanin said. The attacker then crossed the Seine attacking others and injuring one with a hammer.

Police chased in pursuit and used a taser to neutralise the man, who was then arrested.

Agence France-Presse