The French man detained over the killing of three Kurdish people in Paris last week has told investigators he had a “pathological” hatred of foreigners, the city’s prosecutor said on Sunday. The 69-year-old man was arrested on Friday after shooting dead two men and a woman in a Kurdish cultural centre and nearby Kurdish cafe in the 10th district of Paris, which the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described as a “vile” attack on the Kurds of France. The killings shocked France and stunned the Kurdish community, which was preparing to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the unresolved murder of three activists in 2013. Thousands took to the streets across France in protests this weekend to complain about a lack of safety and claim that the French security services did too little to prevent the shooting. The Paris protests saw clashes between some demonstrators and police. The suspect said during questioning that, since a burglary at his home in 2016, he had felt “a hatred of foreigners that became totally pathological”, the prosecutor Laure Beccuau, said in a statement. He had wanted to kill migrants or non-European foreigners since that time. The man described himself as “depressive” and having “suicidal” tendencies, recounting that he had planned to kill himself with a last bullet after his attack, the prosecutor said. The man told investigators that he had first travelled to the town of Saint-Denis just north of Paris, armed with a gun and seeking foreigners to “murder”. He gave up on that idea because there were few people about and his clothing had made it difficult to recharge his gun. He finally decided to head to Rue d’Enghien in the 10th arrondissement of Paris because he knew there was a Kurdish cultural centre there. When he arrived at the centre, he opened fire. A search at the home of the suspect’s parents, where he was living, did not find evidence of any link to extremist ideology, the Paris prosecutor said. Kurdish representatives have called for Friday’s shooting to be considered a terror attack. The prosecutor said the questioning of the man was paused on Saturday because of his health and he was transferred to a psychiatric unit. The man has been described by French media as a French former train conductor and gun enthusiast who was born in the Paris area and had a history of weapons offences. He had recently been released from prison, where he had served a year on remand awaiting trial for a sabre attack on a migrant camp in eastern Paris a year ago, where he was accused of stabbing migrants and slashing their tents with a sword.