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Notre-Dame Cathedral Is Blocked Off Following Report of Shooting Police Shoot Attacker Outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
(35 minutes later)
PARIS — Visitors and worshipers at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris were told not to leave on Tuesday afternoon, and the square in front of the Gothic landmark was evacuated, following an unconfirmed report of a shooting. PARIS — An officer shot and wounded an assailant armed with a hammer and knives on the square outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Tuesday afternoon, the local authorities said.
A police officer had shot a man who tried to attack him with a hammer, according to Guillaume Biet, a reporter for the network Europe 1. The cathedral, a Gothic landmark on the Île de la Cité in the Seine River, was sealed off, and visitors and worshipers were told not to leave. The square in front of the cathedral was evacuated. The officer was wounded, and the attacker was taken to a hospital, the police said.
Other French journalists also reported that shots had been fired at the cathedral. The Paris prosecutor’s office said it had opened a terrorism investigation and confirmed that the man had attacked the police officer with a hammer. He also had two knives with him, the office said.
That account could not be immediately confirmed. The Paris police said only that a police operation was underway and that people should avoid the area. The officer was lightly wounded, the prosecutor’s office said, adding it was still unclear whether more than one officer opened fire.
On Twitter, the authorities said that a police operation was underway and that people should avoid the area.
About 900 people were inside Notre Dame when the shooting occurred, Karine Dalle, the press attaché for the Paris archdiocese, said in a text message, adding that they were “sitting calmly” and had been told about the event. Two auxiliary bishops were present as well, she said, and were reassuring the crowd. She said there was no panic inside the cathedral.
A witness inside Notre Dame reported that the visitors and worshipers were safe.
Three major terrorist attacks in France, in January and in November in 2015, and in July 2016, claimed more than 230 lives, and the country remains under a state of emergency.
Landmarks across France, the world’s most-visited country, are considered especially vulnerable, despite constant policing.
In February, a 29-year-old man armed with two large knives and shouting “God is great” in Arabic lunged at a military patrol near an entrance to the Louvre in Paris and slashed a soldier. He was shot by a soldier.
The cathedral, which dates to the 12th century, has been the site of suicides in the past.
Antonieta Rivas Mercado, a Mexican intellectual and arts patron, shot herself near the altar in 1931, after she was rejected by a lover.
In 2013, Dominique Venner, a right-wing essayist, killed himself near the altar after protesting a law legalizing same-sex marriage and warning of an imminent takeover of France by “Islamists.”