No 'Islamist' Link Seen in French Missionary Home Murder

Investigators probing the killing of a worker at a Christian missionary retirement home in southern France believe it was a local crime and are not treating it as a terror attack, a prosecutor said Friday.

The death set nerves jangling in France late Thursday after a string of jihadist atrocities, but local prosecutor Christophe Barret said police believed it was not "Islamist terrorism".

"We are moving towards the idea of local crime, someone who was in the area of this home," Barret told reporters, adding that a replica gun that fires pellets had been found in a vehicle parked nearby.

A man aged around 45 who lives in the village of Montferrier-les-Lez where the retirement home is located has been identified as a suspect, a source close to the case told AFP, asking not to be named. 

Witnesses had reported that the killer appeared to have been carrying a shotgun when he burst into the nursing home on Thursday evening before stabbing a 54-year-old worker to death.

More than 130 police backed by a helicopter were searching for the main suspect on Friday after an unsuccessful manhunt overnight, local senior police officer Jean-Philippe Lecouffe said.

Islamist extremists have carried out three large-scale attacks and a series of killings in France since January 2015, including the murder of an elderly priest in his church in July.