A French soldier on Friday shot and wounded a man armed with a knife, after the assailant tried to enter the Louvre museum in central Paris while carrying a suitcase, police sources said. One source said the man had been trying to get into the museum's shopping mall and had attacked another soldier before being shot and seriously wounded.
Police said the area had been evacuated and the interior ministry said on Twitter the incident was "serious". Louvre officials said the museum was closed and that visitors already inside when the attack took place were being kept there.
Attacker cried out 'Allahu Akbar'
The attacker cried out "Allahu Akbar" and police believe he wanted to carry out a terrorist attack, Michel Cadot, the head of the French capital's police force, said on Friday.
"We are dealing with an attack from an individual who was clearly aggressive and represented a direct threat, and whose comments lead us to believe that he wished to carry out a terrorist incident," Cadot told reporters.
"There was also a second individual who was behaving suspiciously, who has also been detained, but for now there does not appear to be a link between that individual and the attack," added Cadot.
What we know about the Louvre attack at 10:20 GMT pic.twitter.com/9gyGqqmlkg
— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 3, 2017
Series of attacks
France has been hit by a series of militant Islamist attacks over the past two years that have killed more than 230 people and which have been claimed by the militant Islamist group Islamic State. The most recent deadly attack took place in the southern city of Nice when a man drove a truck into a crowd on the seafront killing 86. Two potential attacks were thwarted in September including one by a group of women who parked a car containing gas canisters near Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral. The country is less than three months away from a presidential election in which security and fears of terrorism are among the key issues.Louvre museum attack: -Man with a machete attacked soldiers -Soldier shot the man 5x -Attacker is still alive -1 soldier wounded in the head pic.twitter.com/SuTO9THvIK— AJ+ (@ajplus) February 3, 2017
