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A man has been shot dead after wrestling a soldier to the ground at Paris' Orly Airport and trying to take her rifle.
Key points:
- Suspect, a 39-year-old man with a history of robbery and drug offences, was known to authorities for suspected Islamic extremism
- Witnesses described seeing the man "pointing the gun he had seized at two soldiers" inside the southern terminal prior to being shot dead
- About 3,000 people were evacuated from the airport
No-one else in the busy terminal was hurt, but thousands of travellers were evacuated and flights were diverted to the city's other airport, Charles de Gaulle.
A French official connected to the investigation confirmed French media reports that identified the attacker as Ziyed Ben Belgacem, born in France in 1978.
The Paris prosecutors' office said he did not appear in a French government database of people considered potential threats to national security but that he had already crossed authorities' radar for suspected Islamic extremism.
The suspect's house was among scores searched in November 2015 in the immediate aftermath of suicide bomb-and-gun attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, the office said.
Those searches targeted people with suspected radical leanings.
French President Francois Hollande said investigators will determine whether the attacker "had a terrorist plot behind him".
The prosecutors' office said the 39-year-old was known to the police for theft and drug offences.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the attacker assaulted three Air Force soldiers who were patrolling the airport.
He said the soldier who was attacked managed to hold on to her rifle and the two soldiers she was with opened fire to protect her and the public.
It happened around 8:30am (local time) in a public area of the airport's South Terminal, before passengers must present their tickets or go through security.
Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux said the man was linked with a carjacking earlier in the morning in a northern Paris suburb and that police and intelligence services knew who he was.
In that incident, the Paris police office said, a man fired birdshot at officers who stopped him during a traffic stop, wounding one in the face.
He then fled and stole a woman's car after threatening her with a weapon. That car was found near Orly.
French national police said that only one man was involved in the airport attack and denied reports of a possible second attacker.
The Paris prosecutors' office said its anti-terrorism division was taking over the investigation and had taken the attacker's father and brother into custody for questioning.
Flights grounded for hours, passengers stuck in traffic
Officials said about 3,000 people were being evacuated from Orly, where passengers told of gunshots and panic.
Traffic was jammed near the airport and people were wheeling suitcases down the road.
People on 13 flights that landed around the time the drama was unfolding had to stay on planes for several hours.
Augustin de Romanet, president of the ADP airport authority, said they were allowed off about 12:00pm, once a search of the airport was complete.
A witness identified only as Dominque told local television: "The soldiers took aim at the man, who in turn pointed the gun he had seized at the two soldiers."
Taxi driver Youssef Mouhajra was picking up passengers at Orly when he heard shots, which he first thought were just a warning.
"We have become accustomed to this kind of warning and to having the soldiers there," he said.
Then he said he saw people rushing out of the terminal.
"I told [the passengers] 'let's get out of here'," he said. As he drove away, he saw soldiers and police rushing toward the airport.
The soldier who was attacked is part of the Sentinel special force installed around France to protect sensitive sites after a string of deadly Islamic extremist attacks.
A spokesman for the force said she was shocked but not hurt.
The special force includes 7,500 soldiers, half deployed in the Paris region and half in the provinces.
Orly is France's second-busiest airport behind Charles de Gaulle, serving domestic and international flights, notably to destinations in Europe and Africa. It has two terminals, with a capacity of 30 million passengers per year.
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.
Saturday's attack further rattled France, which remains under a state of emergency after attacks over the past two years that have killed 235 people.
ABC/AP
First posted