A knife-wielding man went on the rampage in a park south of Paris on Friday, killing a man out for a walk with his wife and wounding two other people before being shot dead by police, officials said.

The Paris police department said the man had attacked “several people” around lunchtime in the park in the suburb of Villejuif.

Some managed to evade him, but the man claimed at least one life—that of a 56-year-old Villejuif local, according to the commune’s mayor Franck Le Bohellec.

The victim “was walking with his wife when the attacker approached; he wanted to protect his wife” and was stabbed, the mayor explained.

According to a source close to the inquiry, another man was seriously wounded in the attack and a woman sustained light injuries.

According to Laure Beccuau, prosecutor of the Cretail commune southeast of Paris, the man had tried to stab others, but “they managed to evade him.”

The assailant fled the park to the neighbouring suburb of Hay-les-Roses, where he was later shot dead by police.

He had made his way to a shopping centre “where he seemingly intended to continue his attack,” Hay-les-Roses mayor Vincent Jeanbrun told BFMTV.

“Luckily the police were quickly alerted and made their way rapidly to the scene where they neutralised him by killing him,” Jeanbrun said.