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http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/paris-louvre-soldier-shooting-1.3965025
A French soldier shot and wounded a man armed with a machete and carrying two bags on his back on Friday morning as he tried to enter the Louvre Museum in Paris in what police said looked like a terrorist attack.
The man attacked another soldier before being shot near the museum's shopping mall, police said, adding a second person had also been detained after acting suspiciously.
The attacker was alive but seriously wounded, the head of Paris police Michel Cadot told reporters at the scene, adding the bags he had been carrying contained no explosives.
"The soldier fired five bullets," Cadot said, describing how the man hurried threateningly towards the soldiers.
"It was an attack by a person... who represented a direct threat and whose actions suggested a terrorist context."
A spokesman for the military force that patrols key sites in Paris said the suspect attacked the four-man patrol of soldiers at the Louvre after he was refused entry — because of the bags he was carrying — to a shopping complex under the museum. Some 3,500 soldiers patrol key sites as part of beefed-up security measures in Paris.
By 12:30 p.m. local time, police had lifted roadblocks in the area. Staff members returned to the shopping mall and tourists streamed out of the museum.
Hundreds of tourists had remained inside during the incident, and some were brought into special safe rooms, according to a witness.
An anti-terrorism inquiry has been opened, the public prosecutor said in a statement.
The identity and nationality of the attacker remains unknown for now, French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters.
France has been hit by a series of attacks over the past two years that have killed more than 230 people.
FRANCE-SHOOTING/
French police secure the site near the Louvre Pyramid on Friday. (Christian Hartmann/Reuters)
The country is less than three months away from a presidential election in which security and fears of terrorism are among the key issues. It has been living under a state of emergency since November 2015.
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.
In September, in an attempted attack, a group of women parked a car containing gas canisters near Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral.
CBC IN FRANCE | 'Everyone is afraid of it': France's massive ID database seen as threat to personal freedom
Police cordoned off and evacuated the area around the museum on Friday. Louvre officials closed the museum and kept visitors inside from leaving.
Soldiers on patrol near the museum are part of security measures that have beefed-up in the wake of terror attacks in France in 2015 and 2016.
A French soldier shot and wounded a man armed with a machete and carrying two bags on his back on Friday morning as he tried to enter the Louvre Museum in Paris in what police said looked like a terrorist attack.
The man attacked another soldier before being shot near the museum's shopping mall, police said, adding a second person had also been detained after acting suspiciously.
The attacker was alive but seriously wounded, the head of Paris police Michel Cadot told reporters at the scene, adding the bags he had been carrying contained no explosives.
"The soldier fired five bullets," Cadot said, describing how the man hurried threateningly towards the soldiers.
"It was an attack by a person... who represented a direct threat and whose actions suggested a terrorist context."
A spokesman for the military force that patrols key sites in Paris said the suspect attacked the four-man patrol of soldiers at the Louvre after he was refused entry — because of the bags he was carrying — to a shopping complex under the museum. Some 3,500 soldiers patrol key sites as part of beefed-up security measures in Paris.
By 12:30 p.m. local time, police had lifted roadblocks in the area. Staff members returned to the shopping mall and tourists streamed out of the museum.
Hundreds of tourists had remained inside during the incident, and some were brought into special safe rooms, according to a witness.
An anti-terrorism inquiry has been opened, the public prosecutor said in a statement.
The identity and nationality of the attacker remains unknown for now, French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters.
France has been hit by a series of attacks over the past two years that have killed more than 230 people.
FRANCE-SHOOTING/
French police secure the site near the Louvre Pyramid on Friday. (Christian Hartmann/Reuters)
The country is less than three months away from a presidential election in which security and fears of terrorism are among the key issues. It has been living under a state of emergency since November 2015.
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.
In September, in an attempted attack, a group of women parked a car containing gas canisters near Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral.
CBC IN FRANCE | 'Everyone is afraid of it': France's massive ID database seen as threat to personal freedom
Police cordoned off and evacuated the area around the museum on Friday. Louvre officials closed the museum and kept visitors inside from leaving.
Soldiers on patrol near the museum are part of security measures that have beefed-up in the wake of terror attacks in France in 2015 and 2016.
