Three French soldiers on anti-terror patrol were stabbed outside the offices of a Jewish radio station in Nice on Tuesday, reports The Independent.
None of the soldiers were seriously hurt. Their attacker was seized by two tram workers and was later being held in custody.
Police said the man was called Moussa Coulibaly, 31 – the same surname as Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four people at a Jewish supermarket in Paris on 9 January.
The incident was being treated provisionally as a terrorist attack but Nice police sources said last night that he was “an unbalanced individual” who had a record of violence towards police officers.
They said they did not believe that he was related to the Paris gunman. Coulibaly is common name in Mali in north west Africa.
The three man patrol was part of a force of 10,500 soldiers deployed in shopping areas, railway stations and outside synagogues and mosques since the jihadist attacks which killed 17 people in Paris last month.