MEGNANVILLE, France // French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday called the killing of a policeman and his partner by a man claiming allegiance to ISIL a "terrorist act" and warned France still faced a serious threat.
The attack is the first deadly strike in France since the coordinated attacks on Paris by an ISIL cell in November in which 130 people were killed.
Mr Hollande said the 42-year-old policeman and his partner, who were attacked at their home northwest of Paris overnight, were "murdered in cowardly fashion".
"It's unquestionably a terrorist act," Mr Hollande said, stressing that France, which is currently hosting the Euro 2016 football championships was still "facing a very significant terrorist threat".
Sources close to the investigation identified the suspect, who was killed in a dramatic police operation, as Larossi Abballa, 25.
They said he had been previously sentenced for a role in an extremist group with links to Pakistan.
He stabbed the policeman repeatedly outside his home in Magnanville, a northwestern suburb of Paris, before holing up inside with the policeman's partner and the couple's three-year-old son.
Loud detonations were heard at the scene as elite RAID police moved in following failed negotiations with the attacker.
Officers found the woman's body after they stormed the house, and her attacker was killed during the assault, interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.
The couple's toddler son was "in shock but unharmed", a prosecutor added, saying the boy was receiving medical attention.
The slain policeman was 42 years old and worked in nearby Les Mureaux. His partner was a local police official. Their identities have been withheld.
Witnesses told investigators the man may have shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) as he stabbed the policeman.
Sources close to the inquiry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he claimed allegiance to ISIL while talking to officers.
The Site Intelligence Group, a US-based monitor, cited the ISIL-linked Amaq News Agency as saying on its Telegram channels: "Islamic State fighter kills deputy chief of the police station in the city of Les Mureaux and his wife with blade weapons near #Paris."
Abballa, the sources said, had been sentenced in 2013 to a three-year term, six months of which were suspended, for "criminal association with the aim of preparing terrorist acts".
Mr Hollande met at the Elysee presidential palace early Tuesday with prime minister Manuel Valls, interior minister Cazeneuve and justice minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas.
Mr Hollande said an "odious act" had been committed and vowed to shed all light on the murders.
The killing came after a gunman claiming to be acting in the name of ISIL shot dead 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in US history.
The bloodshed also comes as France hosts the Euro 2016 football tournament under tight security.
The country is still reeling from extremist attacks in Paris last November that left 130 people dead.
Mr Cazeneuve said the killings were "an appalling terrorist act".
The interior minister said that since the start of 2016, more than a hundred people "representing a threat to public security" had been arrested.
* Agence France-Presse
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