French police: man tried to seize weapon at airport, killed

Incident prompts partial evacuation of the terminal of Paris’ Orly Airport.

A picture taken from a TV grab on March 18, 2017 shows the body of a man lying on the ground of a terminal building at Paris’ Orly airport after he was shot dead by security forces for taking a weapon from a soldier. It is not known whether he acted alone or was part of a group.

A man was shot to death on Saturday after trying to seize the weapon of a soldier guarding Paris’ Orly Airport, prompting a partial evacuation of the terminal, police said.

Authorities warned visitors to avoid the area while an ongoing police operation was under way. Emergency vehicles surrounded the airport as confused passengers gathered in parking lots, and the elite RAID special police force worked to secure the airport.

Was he a lone-wolf or...?

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said the Orly airport attacker assaulted a patrol of three soldiers, all from the air force, including a woman.

The Minister said the two other patrolmen opened fire "to protect her" and the public in the airport.

French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux said the man shot dead at the airport was the same as the one who "is linked with car hijacking" earlier in the morning in a Paris suburb.

The soldier, who was attacked, is part of the Sentinel special force installed around France to protect sensitive sites after a string of deadly Islamic extremist attacks. The force includes 7,500 soldiers, half deployed in the Paris region and half in the provinces.

Second biggest airport

Orly is Paris’ second-biggest airport behind Charles de Gaulle, serving domestic and international flights, notably to destinations in Europe and Africa.

Saturday’s attack further rattled France, which remains under a state of emergency after attacks over the past two years that have killed 235 people.

Fourth such time

The attack at Orly Airport marked at least the fourth time that Sentinelle soldiers have been targeted since the force was created two years ago. Some have been wounded, but no one in the force has been killed.

The Sentinelle force was set up after the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015. Reinforced after the November 13 assaults that left 130 people dead in Paris, it includes 7,500 soldiers, half of them deployed in the Paris region and half in the provinces.

In February, a man wielding a machete attacked four Sentinelle soldiers near the Louvre Museum, a year after three patrolmen were wounded by a man armed with a knife outside a Jewish community center in the southern city of Nice.

In January 2016, a man rammed his car into four soldiers guarding a mosque in the southeastern city of Valence.