Police have shot dead a man who stabbed three officers in a police station in central France, according to French media.

The 20-year-old reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest" in Arabic) as he carried out the attack in Joue-les-Tours, near the city of Tours, on Saturday.

He ran into the station and pulled out a knife and stabbed three officers who tried to calm him down, Le Figaro newspaper said.

He wounded a female police officer, injuring her cheek and ear, and then stabbed two other officers.

A police officer pulled out a gun and shot him twice, killing him instantly, the newspaper reported.

Other reports said he was shot by two officers.

The Burundi-born man had a criminal record, Le Figaro said.

A witness said: "I saw the four policemen take the attacker to bring him inside and they told him to calm down. But the guy started to shout 'aaah' and struggled.

"Then I noticed quite a large knife and one of the policemen fell on the floor. He had blood everywhere and it spurted from its wound. Then I saw a policewoman with her head full of blood.

"The third officer who was with them fired at him. He shot four times... And I was standing there in a state of shock."

Anti-terror investigators are probing the incident, a source told AFP news agency.

The source said the man "shouted 'Allahu Akbar' from the moment he entered until his last breath".

He was not on any terror watch lists run by France's main domestic intelligence service, the General Directorate for Internal Security.

But the source said his brother was known to security agencies for his radical beliefs and had at one point planned to travel to Syria.

"The investigation is leading towards an attack on police forces on radical Islamist motives," another source told AFP.

A police spokesman said the three officers are in a stable condition.

Originally posted at 19.04