Police officers gather in the area of a knife attack near the former offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, Sept 25, 2020 in Paris. (THIBAULT CAMUS/AP)

PARIS - The stabbing attack in Paris on Friday near the former offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was "clearly an act of Islamist terrorism," said French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

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"It is clearly an act of Islamist terrorism," Darmanin told France 2 TV channel. "This is the street where there was Charlie Hebdo. It is the operating method of Islamist terrorists, of course, evidently, there is little doubt," he added.

The suspected attacker was from Pakistan, and had arrived in France three years ago as an unaccompanied minor, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said

France's National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor's Office said an investigation was opened for "attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise" after the attack that left two people injured.

A man armed with a meat cleaver attacked and wounded two people on Friday who had stepped out for a cigarette in front of the Paris office building where Islamist militants gunned down employees of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo five years ago.

Police soon after detained the man suspected of carrying out the attack, with bloodstains on his clothes, next to the steps of an opera house about 500 meters away.

The suspected attacker was from Pakistan, and had arrived in France three years ago as an unaccompanied minor, Darmanin said.

A second man, aged 33 and suspected of being linked to the attack, was arrested by the Railway Network Brigade at 1:30 pm in the Paris metro, officials said.

Five more people were taken into custody as part of the investigation, bringing to seven the number of people held in police custody in this case, reported local channel BFM TV.

“We are still in a war against Islamist terrorism,” Darmanin said in a Twitter post.

He said he had ordered law enforcement agents to beef up protection at all sites where Islamist attacks had taken place in the past, and at synagogues, where the city’s Jewish community this weekend mark the Yom Kippur holiday.

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The victims of Friday’s attack were taken to hospital but their lives were not in danger, officials said.

The attack coincided with the start this month of the trial of 14 alleged accomplices in the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack. The gunmen behind that attack killed 12 people.

Investigators said the militants at that time wanted to avenge the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in the magazine. Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons on the eve of the trial this month.