Paris stabbings: Seven people in custody after attacks near former Charlie Hebdo office

Five were detained at residence which is thought to be that of suspected attacker, official says

Seven people are in custody after two people were stabbed in Paris (AP)

Seven people are in custody after a stabbing outside the former Charlie Hebdo office in Paris. 

This includes the suspected attacker, according to French authorities. 

Two people were wounded in Friday’s stabbing – a man and a woman working at a documentary production company who had stepped outside for a cigarette break. 

Officials have said their injuries are not life-threatening.

Counter-terrorism officers are investigating what authorities have called an Islamist attack linked to Charlie Hebdo, which lost 12 employees in an al-Qaeda attack in 2015.

Eight people in total have been detained after the stabbing on Friday, but one has since been released, according to judicial sources. 

Five of those in custody were arrested in the Paris suburb of Pantin at a residence where the suspect is believed to have lived, a police official said.

The stabbings came weeks after Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that now operates in a secret location, reprinted its controversial caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad to mark the start of the trial into the fatal attack at its offices five years ago. 

Thousands of children were ordered to remain in school as a precaution and Metro lines were closed in the aftermath of Friday’s attack.

Gerald Darmanin, the French interior minister, said the suspected assailant was arrested about a month ago for carrying a screwdriver and was not on the police’s radar for Islamist radicalisation.

Police quickly detained the man suspected of carrying out the attack next to the steps of an opera house near the site of the stabbing on Friday.

The suspected attacker was from Pakistan and arrived in France three years ago as an unaccompanied minor, Mr Darmanin said.

The national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office said it was investigating the attack.

Additional reporting by agencies