Handguns, assault rifle and gas canister found in car used in ‘attempted attack’ on avenue in Paris, French officials say

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

France’s anti-terror prosecutor has opened an investigation after a car carrying firearms and a gas canister rammed into a police van on the Champs Élysées in central Paris.

The French interior minister, Gérard Collomb, said the driver of the car was killed in what he described as “an attempted attack” on a convoy of police vehicles on the avenue, the scene of two terror attacks in three months.



Police sources told French media the attacker was a 31-year-old French national from the Paris suburb of Argenteuil whose name was on a terror watchlist because of his known links with suspected extremists.

Collomb said arms and a gas canister were found in the car. Police sources said the weapons included handguns and an AK47 assault rifle. Bomb disposal experts were at the scene.

Collomb told reporters the attempted attack on security forces showed the terror threat was “still very high in our country” and justified extending to November the state of emergency France has been under since late 2015.

A still image taken from social media shows police officers engaging with a suspect outside a car. Photograph: Social media/Reuters

No other injuries, including to the police officers inside the van, were reported in the ramming, which a police source told BFM TV resembled a “kamikaze attack”.



Eric Favereau, a journalist with the newspaper Libération who was on a motorbike behind the convoy, said he saw the police vans at a standstill near the Grand Palais exhibition hall and a car blocking their path, followed by an explosion.

Favereau said he saw flames coming from the car and police smashing its windows and dragging the driver out. He said some police then pulled the man on to the ground while others used fire extinguishers to put out the blaze.

Police cleared the area and cordoned off the Champs Élysées, also closing a nearby metro station. The area, popular with tourists, has been on high security alert since a police officer was shot and killed on the the avenue in April.

Days before the first round of France’s presidential election, Karim Cheurfi, a convicted criminal who carried a note defending Islamic State, used a Kalashnikov rifle to kill the police officer before being shot dead himself.

France has been on its highest possible level of terror alert since the 2015 Charlie Hebdo and Paris attacks and the Nice truck attack of July 2016 that claimed nearly 230 lives. Thousands of troops and armed police have been deployed to guard tourist hotspots.