One German tourist has died and two others have been injured after a man attacked tourists in central Paris near the Eiffel Tower in what President Emmanuel Macron described as “a terrorist attack”.

Police quickly arrested the 26-year-old man, a French national, using a Taser stun gun, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters on Saturday.

The suspect had been sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 for planning another attack, was on the French security services’ watch list and was also known for having psychiatric disorders, the interior minister said.

The attack took place about 1900 GMT on Saturday when the man attacked a tourist couple with a knife on the Quai de Grenelle, a few metres away from the Eiffel Tower, mortally wounding a German national. 

He was then chased by police and attacked two other people with a hammer before being arrested.

The suspect had shouted out “Allahu akbar” (God is Greatest) and told police he was upset because “so many Muslims are dying in Afghanistan and in Palestine” and was also upset about the Gaza situation, Darmanin said.

“I send all my condolences to the family and loved ones of the German national who died this evening during the terrorist attack in Paris and think with emotion of the people currently injured and in care,” President Macron said on social network platform X.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne expressed defiance in the face of such attacks.

“We will not give in to terrorism,” she wrote on X.

French anti-terrorism prosecutors are leading the investigation into the incident.

The attack in central Paris occurred less than eight months before the French capital hosts the Olympic Games and could raise questions about security at the global sporting event.

The city is planning an unprecedented opening ceremony on the Seine river, with the potential to attract as many as 600,000 spectators.

By Dominique Vidalon and Gilles Guillaume in Paris with EFE