Paris: Troops at Paris’ Orly airport shot dead a man who tried to grab a female soldier’s weapon on Saturday, triggering a major security alert that briefly shut down the airport, leaving thousands stranded.
The incident comes as France remains on high alert following a series of jihadist attacks that have claimed over 230 lives since January 2015.
Prosecutors said they had opened an anti-terror investigation.
France goes to the polls on April 23 in the first round of a two-stage presidential election in which security is one of the main issues on voters’ minds.
The shooting took place on the second day of an official visit to Paris by Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate.
Interior minister Bruno Le Roux said the man who was killed was “known to the police and intelligence services”.
He said the suspect was also linked to an attack on the police just north of Paris earlier on Saturday, in which an officer was slightly wounded.
At the airport, the man knocked the soldier to the ground and grabbed at her rifle, a senior military source said.
The two other soldiers with her then opened fire, killing him, the source said. No-one else was injured in the incident.
According to an eyewitness who spoke to AFP, the attacker had at one point held the female soldier hostage.
“The man took a soldier hostage, he was holding her by the neck and he was threatening two other soldiers with the woman’s rifle,” said a traveller.
