Man with a knife tries to attack Paris police station, killed

The French police shot dead a suspected suicide bomber on Thursday as he attacked a police station in Paris, a year to the day since jihadist gunmen killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo newspaper.

The man reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) and was carrying a knife and possibly wearing what appea-red to be an explosives vest, the interior ministry said. He was carrying the emblem of ISIS, a prosecutor said.

News of the attack came just after President Francois Hollande concluded a sombre speech at police headquarters to mark the anniversary of the killings at Charlie Hebdo’s offices on January 7, 2015.

“On Thursday morning, a man attempted to attack a policeman at the reception of the police station before being hit by shots from the police,” said interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.

Explosives experts were deployed to the scene in the multi-ethnic Goutte d’Or district, close to the Gare du Nord international station, the source added.

With France also still grieving from the massacre of 130 people by jihadists in Paris in November, Mr Hollande used his speech to call for greater cooperation betw-een the security services.

“Faced with these adversaries, it is essential that every service — police, gendarmerie, intelligence, military — work in perfect harmony, with the greatest transparency, and that they share all the information at their disposal,” the president said. Many of the attackers in both January’s rampage and the attacks in November were known to French security services, having either travelled abroad to fight with extremists or been prevented from doing so.

Mr Hollande said that since the attack on Cha-rlie Hebdo, nearly 200 people in France had been pl-aced under travel restrictions to prevent them joining up with ISIS in Syria or Iraq.

The President said the three police officers killed in January’s attacks “died so that we could live in freedom”.

Among changes set to be introduced in the wake of the November attacks are new guidelines allowing the police to keep their weapons even when off-duty.