According to reports, three people attending Notre Dame Cathedral in Nice, France were killed. Two, an elderly woman and a male church warden, were beheaded.

The Daily Mail reports:

France has been struck by two terror attacks within hours of each other as three people were killed – two of them beheaded – in an attack inside a church in Nice before a gunman was shot dead by police in Avignon.

    

The first attack began around 9am at the Notre Dame basilica in Nice where a knifeman beheaded an elderly female parishioner and a male church warden, fatally stabbed a second woman, wounded several others, and was then shot and arrested by police. 

Two hours later, a gunman threatened people on the streets of Avignon – 120 miles from Nice – while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ before he was fatally shot by police. 

READ: France under attack: Jihadist murders three worshippers – including two who were beheaded – INSIDE Nice church + Gunman screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’ is shot dead by cops in Avignon + French consulate worker is stabbed in Saudi Arabia

Two weeks earlier, a French teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded in France after showing satirical cartoons of Muhammad in a class discussing free speech.

The Blaze explains:

The shocking attack comes as the Muslim world has fumed with anger at the French government for refusing to take action against French citizens for public displays of the prophet Mohammad. Those displays are, in turn, a show of solidarity and support for free expression after a French school teacher was beheaded by a Chechen refugee on Oct. 16 in an apparent reprisal for having shown the Mohammad cartoons to his class.

READ: Brutal ‘terrorist attack’ beheading reported in Nice, France, amid escalating tensions in Mohammad cartoon row