Machete attacker shot at Louvre in Paris

Paris : A French soldier patrolling at the Louvre museum shot and seriously injured a machete-wielding attacker yesterday, thrusting security and the terror threat back into the limelight three months before elections.

Police held hundreds of tourists in secure areas of the renowned tourist attraction after the assailant was shot five times around 10:00 am (0900 GMT) in a public area near one of the museum’s entrances.

The knifeman, who yelled “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”), is in a serious condition. One soldier received a “minor” head wound and has been taken to hospital, security forces said.

Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the incident, which will heap more misery on the city’s struggling tourism sector, was “terrorist in nature.” 

It sparked fresh jitters, but also anger, in a country still reeling from a string of terror attacks over the last two years and under a state of emergency since November 2015. 

Witnesses described scenes of panic as shoppers, sightseers and workers fled the Louvre complex following the incident.

“We heard gunshots. We didn’t know what it was about. Then we evacuated the employees and we left,” a man who works in a nearby restaurant said, asking not to be named.

A woman colleague said: “We saw death coming for us, with everything that’s happening at the moment. We were  very scared.”

Police raided a building in central Paris as part of the probe into the attack, a source in the inquiry said.

Thousands of troops have been deployed to guard the capital, with groups of soldiers carrying automatic rifles a regular sight inside the Louvre and around its sculpture-filled gardens.

City police chief Michel Cadot told reporters that a man whose behaviour was “suspicious” had also been arrested following the attack.

Security has been one of the campaign themes ahead of the presidential election in April and May, which is followed by a parliamentary election in June.

Rightwing candidate Francois Fillon, whose tough line on immigration and Islam had helped make him the presidential favourite, has been ensnared in a damaging parliamentary expenses scandal in the last week.

The incident came on the very day that Paris was submitting its formal bid dossier to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.

The Louvre was already suffering from a fall in visitor numbers after the series of attacks in France.

Over the last two years, numbers have fallen by about two million, imperilling its claim to be the most visited museum in the world.

The Louvre was closed yesterday in the wake of the attack, but will re-open on today. 

Probe says suspect is Egyptian

The suspect in the attack  is a 29-year-old man, who says he was born in Egypt and entered France on January 26, probe sources said.

The man is thought to have landed in France on a flight from Dubai, but investigators are still trying to establish his identity, the sources said.

In his visa request to come to France he declared that he was Egyptian.