Strasbourg shooter killed by French police

French police have shot dead the man who attacked Strasbourg's Christmas market on Tuesday, the interior minister has said.

A police unit came across Cherif Chekatt in a Strasbourg street and shot him after he opened fire.

Three people have died following the shooting at the market and several more were seriously injured.

More than 700 French security forces in the northeastern French city had been hunting for 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt since the Tuesday evening attack, which left 13 people wounded, including five in a critical condition.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner on Thursday said three police officers tried to question Chekatt after spotting him "wandering" through the streets in Strasbourg's Neudorf area, where he grew up, but he opened fire.

"They immediately returned fire and neutralized the assailant," Castaner said.

Chekatt, 29, had a string of criminal convictions in France and Germany and had become a radical Islamist in jail.

French prosecutors had opened a "terror" investigation into Tuesday's shooting, while police distributed a photo of Chekatt with the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all, do not intervene."

Hours after Chekatt's death was confirmed, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group claimed him as one of its "soldiers".

The perpetrator of "the attack in the city of Strasbourg ... is one of the soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition" against ISIL, the group said via its Amaq wing in a message posted on Twitter, in a reference to allied countries which are carrying out attacks against it in Syria and Iraq.

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed "the solidarity of the whole country" towards the victims.

"It is not only France that has been hit ... but a great European city as well," he added, referring to Strasbourg, the seat of the European Parliament, which lies on the border with Germany.

Strasbourg's location in the heart of Western Europe means that Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg can be easily reached by car or train, making the search for Chekatt more complicated.

Chekatt was convicted 27 times, mostly in France but also in Switzerland and Germany, for crimes including armed robbery.