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The incident took
place just minutes after President Francois Hollande had given a
speech to security forces in an another part of Paris to mark
the first anniversary of last year's deadly Islamist militant
attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in the French
capital.
"The man may have been wearing something that could be a suicide
belt," Interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told BFM
TV. "Whether it was operational or not, it is too early to say."
One of the police union sources said the belt appeared to be
fake.
The man had tried to force entry into the police station in the
18th district of northern Paris, an area that Islamic State had
said after even deadlier Paris attacks in November that it had
been planning to hit.
"According to our colleagues he wanted to blow himself up," an
official at the Alternative Police union said. "He shouted
Allahu Akbar and had wires protruding from his clothes. That's
why the police officer opened fire."
Officials said bomb disposal experts were on site.
Journalist Anna Polonyi, who could see the body on the pavement
from the window of her flat, posted photos on social media that
showed the body with what appeared to be a bomb-disposal robot
beside it.
She told Reuters that her sister, in the flat with her, saw the
incident happen. She said the police shouted at the man and that
he then started running toward them before they shot him.
(Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, James Regan and Sophie Louet;
Writing by John Irish; Editing by Andrew Callus)
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