Champs- Elysees attack

Rescuers cover the body of a man lying in a sealed- off area of the Champs- Elysees avenue in Paris on Tuesday after a car crashed into a police van before bursting into flames, with the driver being armed, probe sources said. Police said the driver was armed and it appeared to be a “deliberate” act. Authorities said the driver was “most probably dead”

A car exploded and burst into fl ames after it crashed into a police van on the Champs- Elysees avenue in Paris on Monday, police and investigators said.

The car hit the front of a police van as it was overtaking it and caught fi re, a police spokesperson told reporters.

The driver is dead, an interior ministry spokesperson said.

“A bomb disposal operation is underway to ensure the vehicle poses no further danger,” spokesperson Pierre- Henry Brandet said at the scene.

Police sources told AFP that a Kalashnikov rifl e, handguns and gas bottles were found in the Renault Megane.

Witnesses claim they heard shots being fi red and cops told people to fl ee the area, and they saw offi cers cordon off an area near the avenue and close to the presidential Elysee palace.

The Paris prosecutor’s counter- terrorism unit said it had opened an investigation into the incident.

France has been on high security alert following a series of militant Islamist attacks in recent years. The incident came just two months after a policeman was shot and killed on the world- renowned avenue, three days before the fi rst round of France’s presidential election.