Policemen near the site where a municipal policewoman was attacked with a knife on May 28, 2021, in La Chapelle-sur-Erdre, near Nantes, France. © Loïc Venance, AFP
A man attacked a policewoman with a knife on Friday in western France, seriously wounding her and sparking a manhunt, local police said.
The suspect, still armed, was on the run after the attack in La Chapelle-sur-Erdre near Nantes, and police dispatched 80 officers to pursue him, a police source said.
Pupils in the area's primary and middle schools were kept indoors, a city official told AFP.
A source close to the investigation said that the policewoman's injuries were life-threatening.
French police officers have demanded better protection and harsher punishment for attacks against them.
Earlier this month, officer Eric Masson was shot dead while investigating activity at a known drug-dealing site in the southern city of Avignon.
Masson's death came after the April 23 killing of Stephanie Monferme, a police employee who was stabbed to death in the town of Rambouillet outside Paris in the latest jihadist attack in France.
(AFP)