French soldier shoots attacker outside Louvre in Paris

A French soldier opened fire and seriously injured a suspected attacker near the Louvre museum in Paris on Friday, the interior ministry said.

“A serious public security event underway at the Louvre in Paris, priority (of access) given to the security and rescue forces,” Efe news agency cited the ministry as saying.

According to broadcaster France Info, the suspected attacker carrying a rucksack attempted a knife attack on the soldier.

The soldier then opened fire.

The attempted attack took place in the Carousel du Louvre, a commercial underground shopping centre near the entrance to the Louvre, which is one of the world’s most-visited museums.

The soldier was patrolling as part of the Operation Sentenelle foot-patrols around French landmarks that have been in place since the attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Paris kosher supermarket in January 2015 that killed 12 people, the Guardian reported.

A spokeswoman for the Louvre said the museum was “closed for the moment” but would not confirm earlier media reports it had been evacuated.