Paris Police, on Thursday afternoon, shot dead a knife-wielding man who tried to enter a police station in northern Paris, police union sources said.
An official said the man who was shot dead had rushed up to officers at the entrance, threatening them with a knife.
According to Luc Poignant, a police union official, the man who may have been wearing an explosives vest, cried out “Allahu Akbar” or ‘God is great’ in Arabic. The Paris prosecuter’s office informed that the attack on the police station is being investigated as potential “terrorism.”
Sirens are wailing and schools are in lockdown in the Paris neighborhood. At least a dozen riot police vans are blocking off the area in the Goutte d’Or district.
The incident took place on the anniversary date of last year’s deadly attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper by Islamist militant in the French capital.
Minutes before the incident, French President Francois Hollande paid homage to the police officers killed in the line of duty, including three policemen who were shot to death last January in the Charlie Hedbo attack.
In a speech to police forces charged with protecting the country against new attacks, Hollande said the government was passing new laws and ramping up security, but the threat remained high.
Following the January attacks, the government announced that it planned to give the police better equipment and to hire more intelligence agents.
France has been on high alert ever since and was struck again on November 13 by extremists dispatched by the ISIS.
(With input from wires.)
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