Two children and an adult are in a life-threatening condition in hospital after a mass stabbing in the town of Annecy in the French Alps. 

A Syrian national with legal refugee status in France wounded four children aged around three and an adult in the knife attack in a French park near the lake in the town on Thursday morning.

"Children and one adult are between life and death. The nation is in shock," French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter. "Our thoughts are with them as well as their families and the emergency services." He described the attack "an act of absolute cowardice."

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin took to Twitter confirming that a man they believe to be the culprit had been arrested "thanks to the rapid reaction of security forces." 

Police said the other two children were slightly injured. Witnesses said at least one child involved was in a stroller.

The attacker was not known to security agencies and their motivations are unclear, according to a source close to the investigation.

"There are very young children in a critical state and I ask you to observe a minute of silence for them, for their families," parliament speaker Yael Braun-Pivet told MPs as she interrupted a raucous debate about pension reform. 

"We hope that the consequences of this extremely serious attack are not consequences that will send the country into mourning."

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne is traveling to the scene of the stabbing attack.

France has been the target of a series of traumatic Islamist attacks over the last decade, including on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in 2015, the national stadium and Bataclan concert hall in Paris in the same year, and the city of Nice in 2016.

Most recently, the beheading of a teacher in broad daylight in 2020 near his school in a Paris suburb by a Chechen refugee led to an outpouring of grief and a national debate about the influence of radical Islam in deprived areas of the country. 

Annecy is a quiet Alpine town of 135,000 people that lies 30 kilometers south of the Swiss city of Geneva. 

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