Paris refuses to live in fear as crowds gather to visit the city’s famed landmark. An Islamic extremist armed with machetes attacked French troops in front of the Louvre Museum on Friday before being shot and detained. Reports Deutsche Welle.
Paris’ Louvre Museum reopened its doors to art lovers Saturday, just 24 hours after soldiers shot a machete-wielding attacker outside the landmark site.
Crowds formed at the museum’s entrance as the doors reopened to visitors at 9:30 a.m. local time (0830 UTC).
As usual, soldiers armed with machine guns patrolled the outside the museum, while Louvre security staff undertook routine bag checks.
On Friday, a 29-year-old Egyptian assailant attacked a group of soldiers outside the Louvre with a pair of machetes, before being foiled and shot up to five times. He is currently in custody and being treated in a Paris hospital, where he reportedly remains in a critical but stable condition.
One of the troops was slightly injured in the attack, but French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday that he expected the soldier to the rejoin his regiment later that evening.