French soldier shoots man who tried to enter Louvre museum in Paris

The suspect, who has not been named by the police, was identified as a 29-year-old man from Egypt hours after he was shot while storming the legendary Louvre museum with a machete, franceinfo reported.

Police say the man attacked soldiers after he was refused entry to a shopping complex under the museum with his bags. Two backpacks carried by the attacker were searched and found to contain no explosives, police added.

Investigators are still trying to find his motives. The interior ministry also said a second person was arrested in connection to the attack.

Heavily armed soldiers have been on the streets of Paris since the terrorist attacks on the city in November 2015.

At a meeting of European Union leaders in Malta, French President Francois Hollande praised the courage and determination of the soldiers.

A soldier opened fire on the attacker, firing five times and wounding him in the stomach.

Update 11am: The French Prime Minister says this morning’s attack in Paris was “terrorist in nature”.

Earlier on Friday, a man yelling Allahou Akbar (God the Greatest) menaced soldiers and attacked them outside Louvre Museum.

His father, Reda Refae al-Hamahmy, said after learning that his son has been responsible for the Paris attack that Abdullah had been “normal” and was neither an extremist nor did he belong to any militant groups.

It is noteworthy that the attacker slightly injured one of the soldiers, in the scalp.

French police launched a terror investigation Friday after a man tried to attack soldiers on patrol outside the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The Louvre in the center of the French capital is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Paris. Police shut down entrances around where the attack took place and evacuated the surrounding areas.

In September, in an attempted attack, a group of women parked a vehicle containing gas canisters near Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral.