PARIS (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande urged better intelligence coordination on Friday after it emerged that a new convert to Islam who stabbed a soldier had been on the police radar but the information was not passed on.

"There has to be a better follow up of local information by the intelligence services," he told the media networks France 24, RFI and TV5 Monde.

"The weakness was a piece of information which was not handled properly and it should be set right," he said.

"Every time that there is local information on an individual, it should be absolutely transmitted to the intelligence services," he added.

A man named as Alexandre D. was arrested on Wednesday over the weekend stabbing of a soldier in Paris, which came on the heels of the brutal murder of a soldier in London.

A judicial inquiry was opened on Friday and the man could be charged with attempted murder with a terrorist motive, a judicial source said.

Reports emerged that Alexandre D., 22, had attracted the attention of local police for his "behaviour" but this information was not shared with the intelligence services.

There were also problems with information sharing among intelligence agencies in the case of Mohamed Merah, the Islamist gunman who killed seven people, including three soldiers, in and around the southwestern city of Toulouse last year.