Police officers in the 18th arrondissement of Paris arrested a 60-year-old Moroccan man who appeared in front of their police station armed with a knife, chanted verses from the Quran and had pictures of officers who worked at the station in his possession.

The 60-year-old appeared in front of the police station in the heavily migrant-populated neighbourhood in the early afternoon on Monday. The Moroccan-born French citizen is said to have stood in the entrance to the police station and to have thrown a 15cm long kitchen knife wrapped in newspaper toward officers before being arrested, French broadcaster BFMTV reports.

After being taken into custody police found that the man, who they claimed seemed mentally disturbed, had in his possession two photographs of uniformed officers who worked at the station in his bag.

Police have so far not released any possible motive for the incident, but police across France have been on high alert for months due to a number of attacks and attempted attacks against police officers by radical Islamic terrorists.

"This is for Syria": French police shoot hammer attacker, reported to be Algerian https://t.co/zmp0ZDD7Zj — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 6, 2017

In Paris alone, one police officer was killed by an Islamic extremist during the French presidential campaign last year on the Champs Elysees, with the Islamic State terror group claiming responsibility, and another officer was attacked by an Islamic radical outside the famous Notre Dame cathedral only a month an a half later.

Several other attacks on police officers have occurred across France with the most recent being the killing of Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame who was shot by Islamic terrorist Radouane Lakdim after he traded places with one of the people Lakdim had taken hostage at a local supermarket.

Lakdim had taken hostages in order to demand the release of notorious Bataclan massacre attacker Salah Abdeslam who participated in the 2015 attack that saw 130 people killed and 413 others injured.