A French soldier has opened fire on and wounded a man armed with a machete after he tried to enter the Louvre Museum in central Paris carrying two bags.
The man cried out "Allahu Akbar" and police believe he wanted to carry out a terrorist attack, the head of the French capital's police force said.
Analysis from Europe correspondent James Glenday:
In November, Parisians wept as plaques to the 130 people murdered by Islamist extremists in 2015 were unveiled across the city.But amid the grief there was hope.
Hope that one year on from the Paris terrorist attacks things were returning to normal and hope too that such a brutal massacre could never be repeated.
And now there's this.
Some will see the Louvre attack as a triumph for French security forces — a man shot and arrested before any serious harm was done.
But others will despair and question whether anything can be done to stop deranged "lone wolves" carrying out more disturbing attacks.
This is also undoubtedly another blow to Paris's prized, yet battered, tourism industry.
After the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre is pretty close to the city's second most popular attraction and even before this incident visitor numbers had dropped by 20 per cent.
Many would-be travellers will now be asking themselves: 'is the city really safe?'
One police source said the man had been trying to get into the museum's underground shop and had attacked another soldier before being shot and seriously wounded.
Michel Cadot, the head of Paris Police, said no explosives were found in the bags of the suspected attacker.
Mr Cadot said soldiers responded to the attack with five shots and that the soldier attacked was slightly injured.
"It was an attack by a person ... who represented a direct threat and whose actions suggested a terrorist context," he said.
"There was also a second individual who was behaving suspiciously, who has also been detained, but for now there does not appear to be a link between that individual and the attack."
The identity and nationality of the suspected attacker remains unknown for now, French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters.
Police said the area had been evacuated and they have cordoned off access to the museum, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Paris.
The Interior Ministry said on Twitter the incident was "serious" and requested that people follow the advice of official security accounts and not broadcast fake information.
Heavily armed soldiers have been on the streets of Paris since the terrorist attacks on the city in November 2015.
The most recent deadly attack took place in the southern city of Nice when a man drove a truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86.
In September, in an attempted attack, a group of women parked a car containing gas canisters near Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral.
ABC/wires
First posted February 03, 2017 20:33:56
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