Three killed in stabbing incident near Paris
A senior French police officer and his partner have been killed in a night-time attack by a knife-wielding man in a suburb of Paris, officials said.
The attacker was also killed in the incident while a young boy was rescued from the scene.
The police commander was stabbed to death outside his home in Magnanville, about 35 miles west of Paris, the interior minister's spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters at the scene.
The attacker then retreated indoors before elite police commandos stormed the residence. The woman and the attacker were found dead, and a young boy was found unharmed.
"The toll is a heavy one," Mr Brandet told reporters, his voice shaking with emotion.
"This commander, this police officer, was killed by the individual ... (and) we discovered the body of a woman. The assailant, the criminal, was killed. Thankfully, a little boy was saved. He was in the house.
He's safe and sound. He was saved by police officers."
The identity and the motive of the assailant were not immediately clear. France, like other countries in Europe, has seen a wave of jihadist violence - often stabbings - aimed at police officers and soldiers.
Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement that the man who was killed was a police commander and that his wife worked for the Interior Ministry.
Mr Cazeneuve's statement said an investigation was under way.
