Car Rams Police Van on Paris’ Champs Élysées; Driver Dead

PARIS (Reuters) —
Champs Elysees
Forensic investigators inspect the burned car on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris on Monday. (Reuters/Charles Platiau)

A driver rammed a car carrying weapons and explosives into a police van as it drove down Paris’ Champs Élysées avenue on Monday, officials said, adding that the man died in the incident and the situation was under control.

The car hit the front of the van as it was overtaking a convoy of police vehicles, a police spokeswoman said. Footage recorded shortly afterwards showed smoke billowing from the car.

Champs Elysees
French police officers engage with the suspect outside the car on the Champs Elysees avenue.(Eugenio Morcillo via Reuters)

France has been on high security alert following a series of terrorist Islamist attacks in recent years, including the shooting of a policeman in an Islamic State-claimed attack on a police bus on the Champs Élysées in April. The Paris prosecutor’s counter-terrorism unit said an investigation had been opened into the incident only a short walk away from the Élysées presidential palace and the U.S. embassy. No bystanders or police were hurt. It was not clear how the driver of the car had died.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the man’s car was carrying weapons and explosives that could have caused a blast.

“This once again shows that the threat level in France is extremely high,” Collomb told journalists not far from the scene.

A police source told Reuters that the man was known to security services.

President Emmanuel Macron said last month his government would ask parliament to extend wider search and arrest powers granted under a state of emergency called after Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in and around Paris in November 2015.

Some magistrates and human rights groups have protested in recent weeks against the proposal that would enshrine in ordinary law measures currently in place under the state of emergency.

 

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