Soldier shoots machete-wielding attacker at Louvre

Tried to attack soldiers; French PM says incident appears to be terrorist attack

A FRENCH soldier shot and wounded a man armed with machetes and carrying two bags on his back on Friday 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” 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 for acting suspiciously.

Paintspray cans — but no explosives — were found in his backpacks, a source 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 November 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 230 people have died in France in the past two years at the hands of attackers allied to the militant Islamist group Islamic State.

The country is less than three months away from elections in which security and fears of terrorism are among key issues.

The city has been gradually recovering from a dip in foreign tourism caused by the attacks.

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.

A total of 130 people were killed in Paris in the November 2015 attacks. In another attack in the city of Nice in July last year a Tunisian drove a truck into a crowd killing 86. REUTERS

Reuters French police secure the attack site near the Louvre Pyramid in Paris on Friday.