Shooting at Notre Dame cathedral. One officer injured – VIDEO
Police in Paris shot and wounded a man who attacked an officer outside the Notre Dame Cathedral on Tuesday, the Paris police headquarters said.
Dozens of armed police sealed off the area and the cathedral in central Paris that is visited by millions of tourists every year was locked down while the security forces secured the area.
It is the first attack since President Emmanuel Macron won last month’s election and comes days before a parliamentary poll in which opinion surveys show Macron on course to win a landslide majority. His rivals portrayed him as weak on security during the presidential campaign.
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UPDATE: Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the attacker was carrying the identification card of an Algerian student. He said preliminary information indicated the attacker had acted alone.
UPDATE: Armed police cordoned off the site and the cathedral in central Paris that is visited by millions of tourists every year was locked down during the incident.
UPDATE: “Situation under control, one policeman injured, the assailant was neutralised and taken to hospital,” Paris police said on Twitter.
Locked inside #notre dame cathedral in #paris while police investigate attack outside against a policeman. All calm pic.twitter.com/Z4B8wUzPTV
— Nancy Soderberg (@nancysoderberg) June 6, 2017
UPDATE: The French counter-terrorism office opened an investigation after the Paris incident.
Police had earlier said they were dealing with an incident in the courtyard outside the world-famous tourist site and warned the public to stay away.
Police sources said the officers shot at the man after he had threatened them with a hammer and refused to stop.
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One officer was lightly injured and the assailant was shot in the thorax, according to one source.
The motive for the attack was not immediately known.
DEVELOPING: Paris police says police operation ongoing at Notre Dame Cathedral, urge people to avoid the area https://t.co/MiENa7bBsa pic.twitter.com/lW9wZehkru
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 6, 2017
France is under a state of emergency after a wave of militant attacks since early 2015 that have killed more than 230 people across the country.
It has soldiers patrolling its streets alongside police to protect tourist sites, government buildings and events.
Three women were arrested in September after police found a car laden with gas cylinders abandoned near Notre Dame cathedral in what the interior ministry at the time said was a likely planned imminent attack.
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