Three police officers were injured by a man who had been on an Islamic radicalism watch list, French authorities said on Friday.
The man, a French citizen in his 40s, died after being wounded in a shootout with law enforcement, a police official said.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin stated that the man had recently been released from prison and that he had been on the watch list due to "rigorous" religious practices.
Three police officers received non-life-threatening wounds during the attack in the Nantes suburb of La Chapelle-sur-Erdre, the minister said.
The attacker was born in France and did not have any past convictions for terrorism-related crimes, Mr Darmanin said.
The man entered the police station Friday morning claiming he had car trouble, according to Mayor Fabrice Roussel.
He then stabbed the first police officer inside the station, took her gun and fled, Mr Darmanin said. The two other officers were shot.
French police used helicopters, search dogs and more than 200 officers to find the suspect, closing nearby schools and shops.
When he was located, he fired on the officers trying to arrest him, the gendarme service said.
The attack is the latest in a series of attacks on French police in recent weeks.
An administrative police official was stabbed to death inside a police station near Paris in a suspected Islamic extremist attack.
In a separate incident, a drug squad officer was shot and killed in the southern city of Avignon.
