A masked man wielding a knife and a sawn-off shotgun stabbed a 54-year old woman to death last night after bursting into a retirement home for Catholic missionaries in southwestern France.

Christophe Barret, the Montpellier prosecutor, announced that a suspect has been identified and that police had made no link with "Islamist terrorism". It appeared to be, he said, a "local" affair, as the suspect was "in the entourage of the retirement home".

Gendarmes found a discarded car 150 metres from the retirement home containing an Airsoft-style imitation weapon capable of firing non-metallic pellets, he said. According to BFM TV, the car also contained a "military medal".

"The precise motives (or the murderer) remain unknown," Mr Barret told journalists.

Police were still hunting for the attacker in the early hours of Friday but managed to get the 60 residents of the retirement home in Montferrier-sur-Lez, near Montpellier, to safety.

Most of those living at the home served as missionaries in Africa.