PARIS—A man who shouted “I’m here to die for Allah” was shot dead after wrestling away a soldier’s assault rifle at Paris’s Orly airport on Saturday, French officials said, unnerving a country that has been targeted repeatedly by terrorist attacks.

Authorities suspended air traffic to and from the airport, located about 10 miles south of the French capital, for a few hours after the attack and evacuated 3,000 people as part of a security operation involving bomb-disposal experts. Inbound flights were temporarily rerouted to...