An attacker armed with a knife killed three worshippers, including two who were beheaded, at a church on Thursday in the Mediterranean city of Nice. It was the third attack in two months in France.
The assailant was shot and arrested by the police after the killings at the Notre Dame Church, less than a kilometre from the site where another attacker ploughed a truck into a Bastille Day crowd, killing dozens, in 2016
Thursday's attacker was believed to be acting alone and police are not searching for other assailants.
In another incident, two hours later, a man armed with a handgun and shouting ‘Allah-u-Akbar’ was shot and killed by cops in Avignon
The attacks came amid fury across the Islamic world at President Macron for defending satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. It also comes less than two weeks after a schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded north of Paris for showing cartoons of the Prophet to his class in a lesson on free speech.
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, a man was arrested after stabbing a guard at the French consulate with 'a sharp tool'. The attacker was arrested while the guard was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. France's embassy in Riyadh condemned the 'attack on diplomatic premises which can never be justified'.
