Three French prison officers were killed and two others wounded Tuesday in an attack on a prison van transporting an inmate who escaped, a police source told AFP.

The ramming attack took place late morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France, another source close to the case added.

The Inmate was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux in Normandy.

A police source said that the attack was carried out by a team of several individuals who arrived in two vehicles and later fled.

One of them was also wounded, a police source said, but it was not immediately clear how many attackers there were in total.

Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti confirmed the attack on the prison convoy and said he was heading to a crisis cell at his ministry on X.

Last Thursday, a man arrested for allegedly attacking a woman with a box cutter shot and seriously wounded two officers at a Paris police station after grabbing one of their weapons.

A source close to the case said the incident happened in the French capitals 13^thdistrict shortly before 10:30 pm (2030 GMT), and that one of the officers wounds was life-threatening. (AFP)