Man shot after machete attack at Paris Louvre
Museum evacuated after lockdown
PARIS: A French soldier shot and wounded a man armed with machetes and carrying two bags on his back yesterday as he tried to enter the Paris Louvre museum in what the government said appeared to have been a terrorist attack. Initial indications were that the man, who was hovering between life and death after being shot, was an Egyptian who arrived in France at the end of January, a source close to the investigation said.
The man shouted Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) and rushed at police and soldiers before being shot and seriously wounded near the museum’s shopping mall, police said. A second person was also detained after acting suspiciously. Paint-spray cans - but no explosives - were found in his back packs, a source close to the investigation told Reuters.
“The soldier fired five bullets,” Michel Cadot, head of Paris police, said, describing how the man hurried threateningly towards the soldiers at around 10 am. “It was an attack by a person ... who represented a direct threat and whose actions suggested a terrorist context.” At a meeting of EU leaders in Malta, French President Francois Hollande praised the courage and determination of the soldiers. “This operation undoubtedly prevented an attack whose terrorist nature leaves little doubt,” he said.
The soldier who shot the man was from one of the patrolling groups which have become a common sight in Paris since a state of emergency was declared in Nov 2015 following bomb and shooting attacks by Islamist militants. An anti-terrorism inquiry has been opened, the public prosecutor said. Another soldier received a scalp wound in the incident.
More than a thousand visitors, including many young children, were kept for an hour inside the Louvre, home to Leonard da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ and countless other treasures, before being released. US President Donald Trump also weighed in yesterday: “A new radical Islamic terrorist has just attacked in Louvre Museum in Paris. Tourists were locked down. France on edge again. GET SMART US,” he tweeted.