All four children — a 22-month-old, two 2-year-olds and a 3-year-old — were in critical condition after the attack, public prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis said in a news conference Thursday. One child was a British tourist, another was Dutch, she said.

One adult victim, who was first stabbed by the attacker and then shot when police were trying to apprehend the suspect, was in stable condition after surgery Thursday, French authorities said. The second adult victim had been injured by the attacker but less seriously.

Police said the suspect, who was arrested at the scene, is a 32-year-old Syrian national, whom they identified by the first name Abdalmasih. They said he had been granted refugee status in Sweden a decade ago.

In video circulated online, which The Washington Post verified was taken at the Annecy playground on Thursday, a man can be seen raising a knife in the air with one hand and gripping a pendant around his neck with the other, while he appears to shout, “In the name of Jesus Christ!”

The man, dressed in shorts and sunglasses and with a scarf wrapped around his head, then appears to attempt to stab people at random, jumping into an enclosed play area. He approaches a screaming woman with a stroller before attacking the child inside.

Some bystanders try to fend him off. Voices off-camera can be heard crying out for the police.

Police said they were unable to comment on French media reports that he was carrying a cross and a Christian prayer book when arrested. The name Abdalmasih is common among Middle Eastern Christians.

Preliminary information suggested “no apparent terrorist motive,” said Bonnet-Mathis, who said the man did not have a history of psychological problems and was not known to police.

A notice that his French asylum application had been rejected, because he already had protection in Sweden, was sent four days earlier, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel TF1, describing it as a “troubling coincidence.”

“We are in close contact with the French police authorities,” said Sofia Hellqvist, a spokeswoman for Swedish police.

The man had left Sweden eight months ago because he was unable to obtain citizenship, an unnamed woman identified as his ex-wife told Agence France-Presse. She said that he’d since been “elusive” but had maintained contact with family in the United States. When they were in touch four months ago, he had been living in a church, the woman said.

The playground where the attack took place is inside the Jardins de l’Europe, pristine public gardens with wooded areas planted with pines and giant sequoias on the banks of the turquoise waters of Lake Annecy, framed by the French Alps.

“The Nation is in shock,” tweeted Macron. “Children and an adult are between life and death. Our thoughts are with them as well as their families and the emergency services mobilized.”

French lawmakers observed a minute of silence inside the National Assembly for the victims and their families.

Anthony Le Tallec, a former French soccer player, said in a series of Instagram videos early Thursday that he was jogging near Lake Annecy when he saw people running from the area. One woman shouted a warning that someone was “stabbing everyone,” including children, he said.

Le Tallec said he saw the assailant coming in his direction with police officers in pursuit. The man ran toward an older couple, Le Tallec said, and stabbed an older man.

Le Tallec said he later saw “children on the ground.”

Part of the attack took place in front of a group of high-schoolers. “We saw some unrest and we heard people shouting, ‘He is attacking the children, he is attacking the children,’” Mathilde Fuzat, an 18-year-old student at Annecy’s Berthollet school, told Le Dauphine. “We didn’t know what to do, whether to take it seriously, and then, I saw a mum grabbing children from the floor and we understood it was very, very serious.”

She said she later saw a couple putting a toddler on the ground in an apparent attempt to provide first aid.

Regarding the person shot during the police chase, the public prosecutor said an investigation had been opened to “specify the circumstances” of the use of firearms at the scene.

France has been under a territory-wide alert for terrorism. In the past decade, the country has been hit by several high-profile terrorist attacks planned by individuals with links to Islamist groups.

The attack also came amid fierce debate in France and Europe over immigration policy. Far-right politicians in France immediately called for tighter border controls.

French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said the attack should not be a prompt for further debate about migration. She urged “unity” and “solidarity” with the victims and their families.

“June 8th will remain a sad memory in the minds of the people of Annecy,” said local Mayor François Astorg. “We all condemn this appalling act.”

Vanessa Schlesier in Berlin contributed to this report.