The Slatest

Man Shot Dead at Paris Airport After Trying to Grab Soldier’s Gun

French Police secure the area at Paris’ Orly airport on March 18, 2017 following the shooting of a man by French security forces.  

CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP/Getty Images

French soldiers shot and killed a man who tried to steal a soldier’s gun at Paris Orly airport on Saturday, leading to the evacuation of thousands of travelers. No one else was hurt in the apparent attack that came as France is engulfed in a contentious presidential campaign in which national security and immigration have taken center stage. The attempted attacker was known to security forces and a police source described him to Reuters as a radicalized Muslim.

The attacker had earlier shot a police officer in the face during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb and then stole a woman’s car at gunpoint to head to Orly. At the airport, the man tried to grab the weapon of a Sentinel soldier, a special force created after the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015. The attempted attack on Saturday echoed a similar incident that took place a little more than a month ago, when a man launched an attack on Sentinel soldiers outside the Louvre museum on Feb. 3.

Although no bystanders were killed, the airport incident became the latest in a series of events that have kept France on high alert after attacks over the past two years have killed 235 people.  Little wonder then that the attempted attack immediately became fodder for politicians with Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader who is leading in the polls, blaming the current administration of President François Hollande. “France overwhelmed by violence, the consequence of the laxity of successive governments,” she wrote on Twitter. “But there is the courage of our soldiers!”