Paris, Jul 29 (IANS): At least three people have been killed and one injured in a shooting at a gas station in southern France.

The incident occurred in the Mediterranean French town of Ollioules, east of Marseille, on Sunday night. An unidentified number of gunmen opened fire and killed two men who were "certainly targeted" in the gas station attack, Robert Beneventi, the commune's Mayor, told state-run radio France Info.

A tourist couple were also caught in the incident and hit by stray bullets, Beneventi said, adding that the "innocent female victim" died while her husband was seriously wounded and sent to a hospital.

The police said that the shooting was believed to be drug related and the perpetrators escaped the scene, media reports said.

The motive of the shooting might be "a possible settling of accounts or the desire to win back a drug trafficking network," Beneventi said, calling for tougher security measures to deal with "such thugs".

"All means are being used to identify and arrest the perpetrators of the Ollioules shooting," French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner tweeted.