GETTY A French mayor has blamed the Schengen Agreement after Louvre attack

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Jacques Myard, the mayor of Maisons-Laffitte and French National Assembly member, said people needed to be on their guard after a terror-style attack on a soldier outside the Louvre yesterday morning. A machete-wielding man launched the attack while yelling “Allah Akbar”, according to Michel Cadot, the head of the French capital’s police force. President Francois Hollande branded the act as “clearly an act of terrorism”.

This is a failure of Schengen Jacques Myard, Maisons-Laffitte mayor

Mr Myard blasted the Schengen agreement, which allows border-free travel throughout much of the EU, and said it was impossible to stop every terror attack. He said: “We have two threats: the threat coming from abroad and of course this is a question of how we control our frontiers. “This is a failure of Schengen. And we have also a threat inside France because we have a large community of Muslims.

GETTY A machete-wielding man launched an attack against a soldier

“Not all Muslims are radicals. But we have spotted that over 10,000 of those Islamists can be radicals. “What happened this morning, it shows really that the threat is inside, and of course you cannot have 100 per cent security everywhere.” He added: “It is necessary to be vigilant. Every citizen should alert the police every time he sees something wrong. “You cannot really prevent anything. This is impossible… This is a question of minute and seconds vigilance.

LOUVRE SHOOTING: Live photographs Fri, February 3, 2017 Pictures live from the Louvre after soldier shoots a man carrying two backpacks who attacked him with a knife. Play slideshow REUTERS 1 of 17 Armed Police at the site.

“People have to be aware that we are at war and that the people who can kill us are inside our cities.” Police sources say the attacker was a 29-year-old Egyptian man who arrived with identity papers in France last month and was reportedly identified as Abdullah Reda Refaei al-Hamamy. It is one in a series of deadly attacks carried out in France over the last two years, the majority of which have been claimed by Islamic State. The man was carrying two backpacks when he went up to four soldiers who had been patrolling the entrance to the underground Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall, beneath the museum.

GETTY Jacques Myard said people needed to be alert after the terror-style attack at the Louvre

When he was blocked from doing so he unleashed a knife and tried to stab a soldier. The soldiers fired five bullets at the man, wounding him in the stomach and the leg leaving him in a critical condition. Two soldiers suffered minor injuries in the incident. Chris Phillips, the former head of the UK National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said: “The security at the Louvre clearly worked how they are supposed to do which was to keep the threat outside. “But it is very difficult to stop an individual who decided to go and commit a terrorist attack like this.”

He added: “But don’t forget at the moment in France and in Paris, in particular, there is a state of emergency. “So, there is an awful lot of police and military patrolling the streets. “That was an advantage in this case. “It is very difficult to stay at a very high state of alert. In fact, it really becomes meaningless when you try to do that because the whole idea of raising the threat level is actually to get people more aware.

GETTY There's an estate of emergency in Paris

GETTY Two soldiers suffered minor injuries in the incident