Champs-Elysees Attacker Dead After Ramming French Police Van
Driver of Car That Rammed Police Van in Paris May Be Dead
(Bloomberg) -- An attacker who rammed a car containing explosives into a French police van on Paris’s Champs-Elysees is dead, the interior ministry said.
Gas canisters, a Kalashnikov gun and hand guns were found in the Renault Megane car that rammed into a police van Monday afternoon. No police or members of the public were hurt. The Champs-Elysees was closed to traffic.
“This shows the level of threat in France is extremely high,” Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said near the site of the incident. Anti-terrorism prosecutors have opened an investigation.
If the incident turns out to be terror related, it would be the second attack since last month’s election of President Emmanuel Macron. The previous incident involved a police officer firing on a man who attacked him with a hammer June 6 near Notre-Dame cathedral.
France has been under a state of emergency since a series of terror attacks in November 2015.
--With assistance from Angeline Benoit
To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net, Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at rruitenberg@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Mark Deen