Six people were injured in a stabbing attack in Paris on Wednesday morning, with the suspect shot down at the Gare du Nord train station.

At around 6.45am local time a man carrying a pointed weapon began attacking people in the station for as-yet-undetermined reasons.

According to Le Parisien the suspect first assaulted a man on the forecourt of the station, stabbing him around 15 times and seriously injuring him.

The assailant then entered the station where he stabbed another five people, including a woman.

Two police officers were alerted to the commotion and intervened as the man was allegedly assaulting a member of the border police.

The pair shot the suspect in the chest, he has been transferred to hospital and is believed to be in critical condition.

Minister of the interior Gérald Darmanin said: "The first acts took place at 6.42am, at 6.43am the police deployed their weapons after a violent incident.

"Without this extremely quick intervention there would surely have been casualties.

"We do not know the identity of the individual, we hope to establish this in the coming hours.

"He manufactured this weapon, which was not a knife, by himself. To my knowledge he did not say anything."

Anti-terror police have not been deployed.

Darmanin confirmed a total of seven people, including the suspect, were injured.

The border guard sustained minor injuries, four people in the station were also lightly injured while a fifth person is "more seriously injured" and has been hospitalised.

Prosecutors are investigating an attempted murder while the IGPN, France's national police inspectorate, will also investigate because officers discharged their weapons.