Pierre-Henry Brandet, of the French interior ministry, said the attacker opened fire on a police van on the Champs Élysées on Thursday night, killing one officer and seriously wounding two others. He said later that the wounded police officers’ lives were no longer in danger.
At about 9pm the man drove a car up to a parked police van full of officers. He got out of the car and fired an automatic weapon, killing one officer in the van, before shooting at others who were standing on the nearby pavement, injuring two before he was shot dead by police.
The French president, François Hollande, said the Champs Élysées attack was “terrorist in nature” and promised “utmost vigilance” by security services to ensure security around the presidential election. He has called a defence council meeting for 8am on Friday, The Guardian reported.
Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement by the group’s propaganda agency Amaq. The statement said the attacker was one of the group’s “fighters” known as Abu Yussef, “the Belgian”. The statement offered no evidence to support the claim.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor François Molins said that security officials had verified the attacker’s identity, although he did not release the name. Molins said that investigators were trying to determine whether the attacker had any accomplices.
Authorities closed the Champs Élysées and the surrounding streets and called on the public to avoid the area, as a police helicopter flew low over central Paris.