A man was shot to death after he tried to seize the weapon of a soldier guarding Paris' Orly Airport on Saturday, French police officials said.
A national police official said the soldier is part of the Sentinelle special force posted around France to protect sensitive sites after a string of deadly Islamic extremist attacks.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the attacker assaulted a patrol of three soldiers, all from the air force, including a woman.
He says the attacker wrestled the woman to the floor and tried to take her weapon, but she managed to keep hold of it.
The minister says the two other patrolmen opened fire “to protect her” and the public in the airport.
No individual was hurt in the incident, but Paris airport authorities said that the airport was immediately evacuated and all flights were redirected.
French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux says the man shot dead at airport is the same as the one who “is linked with a car hijacking” earlier on Saturday morning in a northern Paris suburb. Le Roux said the man, who was not identified, earlier shot a police officer at a traffic stop before stealing the woman’s car at gunpoint. He also said that police and intelligence services know who he is.
The shooting came after a similar incident last month at the Louvre Museum in which an Egyptian man attacked soldiers guarding the site and was shot and wounded.
(With inputs from AP.)
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