A man wielding a skewer and knife went on the rampage in the French city of Lyon on Saturday, leaving a 19-year-old man dead and eight others injured, including three critically.

A police source said the alleged perpetrator was an Afghan asylum-seeker, unknown previously to both the police and the intelligence services.

An eye-witness in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon, described the attack as frenzied.

“There was a man at the 57 (bus stop) who started striking out with a knife in all directions,” said a young girl whose top was stained with blood.

“He managed to hit, to cut open one person’s stomach,” she said.

“He stabbed a guy in the head, he cut the ear of a lady and the lady was dying at the bus stop and no-one came to help,” she added, sobbing.