Paris: Security forces shot dead a man who tried to seize a soldier's gun at Paris Orly airport on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of the busy airport and putting security back in the spotlight in the middle of France's presidential election campaign.
The man, identified as a 39-year-old radicalised Muslim who was already on the radar of police and intelligence services, had earlier shot and wounded a police officer with an air gun after a routine traffic stop north of Paris, officials said.
With the country in the throes of a highly-charged election campaign after two years of attacks on civilians and public targets by Islamic State militants – several of them in Paris – the anti-terrorism prosecutor opened an investigation.
A police source identified the man only as 'Zied B' and said he was known to the police for theft and drug offences.
Prosecutors on Saturday afternoon said the man's father and brother had been detained. BFM TV, without giving a source, said the attacker had sent a text to his father saying: "I've screwed up. I've shot a policeman."
The busy airport south of Paris was evacuated and security forces swept the area for bombs to make sure the dead man was not wearing an explosive belt, but nothing was found, interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.
"The man succeeded in seizing the weapon of a soldier. He was quickly neutralised by the security forces," Mr Brandet said.
No one else was injured at the airport.
Around 3,000 passengers were evacuated from the airport, the second busiest in the country. Flights were suspended from both terminals and some flights were diverted to Charles de Gaulle airport north of the capital, airport operator ADP said.
Shortly after noon, the police search ended and passengers from 13 flights stranded on the airport tarmac were able to disembark, authorities said.
#orly évacuation d'urgence. pic.twitter.com/DN6ISxF0qG
— prestiget75 (@prestiget75) March 18, 2017
Saturday's train of events began at Stains, near Le Bourget airport in northern Paris, where the man fled in a car after he shot and wounded a police officer at a road check.
Soon afterwards, he was involved in a carjacking in another Paris suburb, Vitry, where he threatened customers of a bar, Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux told reporters.
Soon afterward at Orly, he tried to seize a Famas assault rifle from a female air force member who was patrolling the airport as part of the army's 'Sentinelle' security operation.
The man and the soldier fell to the ground after an "extremely violent attack", an army spokesman said. In the ensuing struggle on the ground, other members of the patrol opened fire, killing him, an army spokesman said.
Witnesses described rapid gunfire in a bustling terminal full of weekend travellers.
"We had queued up to check in for the Tel Aviv flight when we heard three or four shots nearby," Franck Lecam, told the AFP news agency.
Another witness, who gave only the name Dominique, said the man seized the female soldier by the arm and take hold of her weapon. Her comrades tried to reason with her assailant: "We ran off, down the staircase. Afterwards, we heard two shots."
The soldier whose gun the man tried to seize was a member of the army's Operation Sentinelle, a special force responsible for patrolling airports and other key sites since January 2015 when Islamist attackers killed 12 people at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
Saturday's incident mirrored a shooting February 3, when an Egyptian man attacked Sentinelle soldiers outside the Louvre museum and was shot and wounded.
Operation Sentinelle has nearly 10,000 soldiers, roughly half of whom patrol in the Paris region, mostly at tourist destinations and commuter hubs. It was reinforced after the Paris attacks.
The incidents came five weeks before France holds presidential elections in which national security is a key issue.
A country on high alert
The country remains on high alert after attacks by Islamic State militants killed scores of people in the last two years, including coordinated bombings and shootings in Paris in November 2015 in which 130 people were killed. A state of emergency is in place until at least the end of July.
A number of smaller-scale attacks have taken place since, including the July slaying of an 85-year-old village priest, when two attackers backing the Islamic State – one of whom had been on a government watch list – slit the priest's throat in the middle of a Mass.
Emmanuel Macron, a popular centrist candidate for the presidency, gave a speech Saturday in Paris on the issue of defence, praising in his remarks the "calm, control and professionalism" of the officers at Orly.
His principal opponent, the anti-immigrant populist leader Marine Le Pen, the head of the far-right Front National party, was slated to speak later in the day in the eastern French city of Metz.
Saturday's attacks would have no impact on a trip to Paris by Prince William, second-in-line to the British throne, and his wife Kate, who are due to end a two-day visit to the French capital on Saturday, a British spokesman said. The British royals earlier on Saturday met some of the survivors of the Paris attacks in a visit to a military hospital.
An international rugby match, France versus Wales, was due to take place in Paris later on Saturday which the British royals were due to attend.
Reuters, The Washington