Four American women were sprayed with acid by a “psychologically disturbed” attacker in Marseille’s main railway station yesterday (Sun), leaving two with facial burns.

Police arrested a 41-year-old woman immediately after the attack at about 9am local time, judicial sources said.

She was said to have a history of mental illness and a police record for theft. The victims, in their early 20s, were rushed to hospital and discharged later in the day. One suffered a partial loss of vision in one eye.

Two other members of their group were also attacked but did not get acid in their faces and were treated for shock.

The attack was “not terror-related and the Americans were not targeted because of their nationality”, according to a police source.

The assailant, who reportedly used a canister of cleaning fluid containing hydrochloric acid, told detectives that she herself had been attacked with acid when she was younger.

She stayed in the station after the attack and showed photographs of herself with burns, La Provence newspaper reported.

The four Americans, who have not been named, were travelling together and were reportedly about to board a train for Paris.

More than a dozen firefighters rushed to the station in four emergency vehicles after the attack, a witness said.