In a knife attack in a church in Nice, southern France, a priest was seriously injured by an apparently mentally disturbed man.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced on Sunday that the priest's life was not in danger.

According to a police spokeswoman, the attack occurred during morning mass in the Saint-Pierre-d'Arène church in the center of the city, not far from the beach promenade.

The perpetrator was apparently mentally confused and was arrested.

A nun was also injured.

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As the mayor Christian Estrosi announced, he was already able to talk to the priest and the injured nun in the intensive care unit.

Despite the dramatic incident, the priest is in good shape.

The perpetrator, who did not have a criminal record and came from Fréjus in southern France, stabbed him several times with a seven-centimetre-long knife.

The municipal police and the national police together stormed into the church to overwhelm the attacker.

Psychological help was organized for many of the believers who were shocked after the attack.

The prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes department, Bernard Gonzalez, said the perpetrator had already received psychiatric treatment, including in a relevant clinic.

The man was not recorded as a criminal or a radicalized person.

The authorities therefore initially did not assume that the perpetrator had an extremist background.

Also in Nice a year and a half ago, an attacker from Tunisia fatally injured three people, including a sexton, in a knife attack in the Notre-Dame church in the center of the city.

The act was classified as Islamic terrorism.

The most shocking attack on a church in France occurred on July 26, 2016 in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen.

During the morning mass, two Islamist-motivated attackers initially took six people hostage.

Then they murdered the priest Jacques Hamel (85) and seriously injured a parishioner.

A nun was able to escape and sound the alarm.

Both attackers were shot dead by the police.

In March, a Paris court sentenced three of the attackers' helpers to lengthy prison terms.