PARIS, France: One person has been killed and four others injured in a series of shootings in suburbs southwest of Paris on October 23, with French authorities treating the attack as a possible terrorist incident.

The shootings took place in Trappes and nearby La Verrière. The mayor of Trappes said a 12-year-old girl was among those wounded.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said the suspected attacker had been arrested and taken into police custody.

France's National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office (PNAT) has taken over the investigation. It is examining the incident as a possible murder linked to a terrorist act.

Ali Rabeh, the mayor of Trappes, said the gunman had driven around in a vehicle and fired at people he encountered. He said the attacker had moved through several neighborhoods and appeared to be trying to cause as many casualties as possible.

"He wanted to cause carnage," Rabeh said.

The mayor said the gunman targeted people at a petrol station, a medical center and a playground in Trappes before driving to nearby La Verrière. Mayor Nicolas Dainville of La Verrière said the four wounded people were in critical condition.

A police union official said police detained the suspect on the N10 main road in La Verrière. Local media later reported that police arrested the 39-year-old suspect in the nearby town of Coignières.

The attacker reportedly drove along a main road, firing intermittently through his car window. A local police chief told BFMTV that the suspect had used an older-style semi-automatic weapon capable of firing in bursts. The newspaper Le Parisien reported that the weapon dated back to the Second World War.

Rabeh said the gunman had also struck a health center, a petrol station and several vehicles during the attack.

The motive remains unclear. French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who was traveling to Trappes, said the incident appeared to be a murderous rampage, but authorities had yet to establish why the suspect carried it out.

Police reportedly knew the suspect, but France's intelligence services did not.

Rabeh suggested that the African heritage of two victims might be relevant to the motive. However, the anti-terror prosecutor urged caution over the victims' identities and the circumstances of the attack.

The prosecutor's investigation includes suspected murder linked to a terrorist enterprise, with an aggravating factor if the attack was motivated by the victims' actual or perceived race, ethnicity, nationality or religion.

Investigators are also examining suspected possession of a Category A weapon, a classification that includes military-grade firearms and weapons capable of firing in bursts. The inquiry also covers suspected conspiracy with a terrorist group to prepare crimes against people.

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed support for the victims and their families, as well as residents of the Yvelines area where the shootings occurred.