Paris knife attacker suspected of killing teenager

A knifeman who stabbed a French police officer near the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris is suspected of having killed a 16-year-old teenager earlier in the day, police sources and prosecutors said Friday.

On Thursday, one police officer shot a man after he attacked another with a knife. The assailant -- identified by a source in the prefecture as a 27-year-old Senegalese national previously known to police -- later died of his wounds.

On Friday, the Nanterre public prosecutor's office told AFP that the attacker is suspected of having committed a murder in Courbevoie, a northwestern suburb of Paris, earlier on Thursday.

According to police sources, the suspect fatally stabbed a 16-year-old teenager in an apartment in Courbevoie before fleeing.

The attacker's parents told police that their son had been squatting in the apartment.

According to the family, he had psychiatric problems and had already run away from his family home in the Loiret region south of Paris as well as from a psychiatric hospital.

Paris police prefect Laurent Nunez said the wounded officer had received serious neck injuries but his life was not in danger.

The attack took place eight days before the opening of the Olympic Games, for which some 35,000 police and gendarmes and 18,000 French military personnel will be mobilised on average every day.

Police said a terrorist motive was not suspected, but the violence added to tensions as Paris prepares to host the Games from July 26.