A French police officer lays flowers while paying tribute to his colleagues killed in a knife attack near their home in Magnanville, west of Paris, France, Tuesday, June 14, 2016. French President Francois Hollande says that the stabbing attack that left two police officials dead was "incontestably a terrorist act." (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

A man with known psychiatric problems stabbed a 19-year-old girl three times in western France on Tuesday, telling police he had heard voices ordering him to make a "sacrifice" for Ramadan, the Rennes prosecutor said.

The attack came a day after a jihadist killed a French police couple in a small town near Paris, in a stabbing inspired by the Islamic State group.

"Voices told him that he had to make a sacrifice on the occasion of Ramadan," the holy Muslim fasting month that began on June 6, prosecutor Nicolas Jacquet told AFP.

The 32-year-old man was immediately assessed by a doctor and sent to a psychiatric hospital after stabbing the girl twice in the wrist and once in the abdomen, Jacquet said, adding that the teenager's wounds are not life-threatening.

The assailant told a witness that he was Muslim before handing over the knife after the attack, Jacquet said.

The man had been in and out of psychiatric wards several times, the prosecutor said, adding that he told investigators he was being treated for schizophrenia and was supposed to receive an injection on Tuesday.

An investigation has been opened into attempted murder.

It emerged on Tuesday that the convicted radical who killed a French police couple in an Isil-inspired stabbing was carrying a "hit list" of VIPs and urged followers to turn Euro 2016 into a "graveyard".

Monday's assault in a small town northwest of Paris was the first deadly strike in France since the coordinated attacks in the capital by an Islamic State cell in November, which killed 130 people.

In the wake of the attack in Magnanville, police unions said officers will now be able to carry weapons while off-duty beyond a state of emergency that was declared after the November attacks, but which is due to expire next month.

Larossi Abballa, who was under surveillance after serving time for links to jihadist networks, stabbed 42-year-old police commander Jean-Baptiste Salvaing outside his home.

He took Salvaing's 36-year-old partner Jessica Schneider and the couple's three-year-old son hostage in the house and killed the woman by slitting her throat.

Abballa then posted on Facebook a live 13-minute video of himself with the child in which he admitted the murders and urged fellow jihadists to carry out more bloodshed.

The 25-year-old was killed during a police raid which ended the standoff.

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