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A man who had recently been released from prison on a terrorism charge was shot and killed by a police officer after he allegedly tried to attack another officer with a knife and scissors near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Friday.
The incident happened near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the ceremony for relighting the eternal flame, which is carried out nightly.
The unidentified man, who is a French national born in 1978, allegedly tried to attack an officer guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and was shot by another officer.
He died of his wounds at a hospital, the French counterterrorism prosecutor’s office said.
French police stand in front of the Arc de Triomphe Friday night after a man tried to attack an officer with a knife. (Guillaume BAPTISTE / AFP via Getty Images)
He was previously sentenced to 17 years in prison in Brussels in 2013 on a terrorist-related offense of attempted murder of three police officers in Belgium and had just been released in December.
The man ended up serving 12 years in prison and was placed under police supervision with routine checks, the French prosecution office said.
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The French counterterrorism prosecutor’s office said it had opened an investigation into the man related to his ties to “terrorist enterprise” before his death.
French President Emmanuel Macron visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arc de Triomphe in 2021. ( Ludovic Marin/Pool via Reuters)
The man was held in a Belgian prison until 2015, when he was transferred to France and released on Christmas Eve.
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The Arc de Triomphe was closed to guests after the incident, in which no one else was hurt.
The man was killed in the incident. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva, File)
The Arc de Triomphe, at the end of the Champs-Élysées, is one of Paris and Europe’s most popular sights, with millions of tourists visiting the monument in the heart of France’s capital each year.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
