Paris police shoot man dead — Charlie Hebdo anniversary

Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told France Info radio it was too early to say whether or not the incident was a terrorist attack and advised caution.

Police stood with their pistols drawn, blocking nearby streets after the attack.

Since the November attacks, Paris has increased its efforts at striking jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, becoming the second largest contributor to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

The Goutte d’Or neighborhood in Paris’ 18th arrondissement, a multi-ethnic district not far from the Gare du Nord train station, was briefly locked down, and two metro lines running through the area were halted. Shops were ordered closed and shop owners hastily rolled down metal shutters. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of police policy. The grisly shooting was payback for Charlie Hebdo’s mocking caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, they said. “That’s why the police officer opened fire”, said a police official.

Many of those who carried out both the January attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Paris kosher supermarket as well as the massacres in November were known to French security services. They were among the first victims in France previous year that ultimately left at least 147 people dead and hundreds of others injured.

The next day, a policewoman was killed by jihadist Amedy Coulibaly in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge, apparently as he was heading to attack a Jewish school.

Police cordoned off the area around the Barbes station as dozens inspected the scene.

As France marks the one-year anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, officers shot a man wielding a knife outside a French police station.

The incident is being investigated as a terrorist “attempted murder” of public officials in authority, the prosecutor said.

Several witnesses claimed the attacker had shouted “Allahu Akbar” – Arabic for “God is the greatest”.

Reports said the assailant could have a possible accomplice to conduct a dare time attack targeting police unit at the same time of last year’s attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Hollande thanked police and security forces and paid tribute to the three officers who were killed in the attacks last January.

“In a country where the level of threat is extremely high, the police, gendarmes, the security forces… are in the frontline”, he said.