French police shot and killed a knife-wielding man under the Arc de Triomphe on Friday after he allegedly threatened officers on ceremonial duty at the Paris landmark, officials said.
The man was shot several times by police as he threatened officers during the ceremony to rekindle the flame at the tomb of the unknown soldier, a police source told AFP.
One of the officers on honour guard duty sustained slight wounds from a knife blow before another officer opened fire on the attacker, according to the gendarmerie. The man was also carrying scissors.
France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said the suspect, a French citizen born in 1978, died of his wounds after being taken to hospital.
The suspect, identified as Brahim Bahrir, was known to authorities as radicalised and had been placed on a watchlist, said a source close to the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The source said Bahrir had called a police station near the Paris suburb where he lived earlier to say he was going to “carry out a massacre” and a hunt was started.
The man had previously been sentenced to 17 years in prison on attempted murder, terror and other charges in Belgium for attacking three police officers there in 2012, the office said. He left prison in December.
President Emmanuel Macron praised the paramilitary gendarmes who he said had “intervened forcefully to stop this terrorist attack”.
Police cordoned off the monument at the top end of the French capital’s bustling Champs-Elysees avenue.
