ARMED MAN SLAMS CAR INTO COPS

A 31-YEAR-OLD man on a jihadist watchlist rammed a car loaded with guns and a gas bottle into a police van on the Champs-Elysees yesterday but inflicted no casualties, in the latest of a string of attacks in Paris.

The assailant died in the incident, although investigators offered no immediate details about the cause. There has been no claim of responsibility for the assault.

The attack – which occurred just a short distance from where a jihadist shot dead a police officer two months earlier – was carried out by a man who had been on France’s security watchlist since 2015 over ties to “the radical Islamist movement”, sources said.

They identified him as Adam Dzaziri, who had been raised in the hardline Salafi Islamic ideology, and did not have a criminal record. Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said a car hit the leading vehicle in a line of police vans as they headed down the Champs-Elysees.

“The security forces have been targeted in France once again,” he said.

Police said they found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, two handguns, ammunition and a gas bottle in the car. The “arms, explosives ... could potentially blow this car up,” Mr Collomb said.