France launches terror probe after officer’s fatal stabbing

France has launched a terror investigation after a police officer was fatally stabbed on Friday.

The female officer, who has only been named as Stephanie, was stabbed inside a police station by a 36-year-old man from Tunisia, a police source told NBC News.

The unnamed assailant is dead after other officers in the building shot him.

“France has lost one of its everyday heroines in a barbaric gesture of infinite cowardice,” French Prime Minister Jean Castex said during a visit to the station. “To her loved ones, I want to express the support of the whole nation. To our security forces, I want to say that I share their emotion and their indignation.”

The motive is unclear, though anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said his office would take over the probe due to statements the assailant made during the attack and his alleged purposeful planning to target that station and a police officer.

A source told NBC News that the man yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he stabbed the officer.

“In the fight against Islamist terrorism, we will not give up,” France President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter.

France has dealt with multiple previous attacks by Islamic extremists, including last year’s beheading of a middle school teacher who showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad for a lesson on free speech and the 2015 shooting at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which left 12 dead.