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A German tourist has been killed and two others injured in a knife and hammer attack on a street in central Paris.

The attack occurred on Quai de Grenelle, near the Eiffel Tower, shortly before 21:00 local time on December 2.

The attacker, a 26-year-old French national known to security services, has been arrested and anti-terrorism prosecutors have opened an investigation.

Officials confirmed that the man killed was a German national.

France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said the victim, born in 1997, was with his wife when he was attacked and fatally stabbed.

Darmanin said the wife’s life was saved by the intervention of a taxi driver and that the suspect fled across a nearby bridge spanning the River Seine.

The man then attacked two more people, hitting one in the eye with a hammer, the minister said.

The suspect was then Tasered by police and arrested on suspicion of assassination – defined in French law as pre-meditated murder – and attempted assassination in relation to a terrorist enterprise.

The two people injured – a Frenchman aged around 60 and a foreign tourist – were treated by emergency services, with neither found to be in a life-threatening condition.

A police operation was initiated around the Bir-Hakeim metro station on Saturday night, and authorities urged people to avoid the area.

Darmanin said the alleged attacker was heard shouting “Allahu Akbar”, Arabic for “God is greatest”, and told police he was upset because “so many Muslims are dying in Afghanistan and in Palestine”.

He said the suspect served four years in jail after being convicted for planning another attack in 2016 and was on the French security services watchlist.

The man was also known to have suffered psychiatric disorders, Darmanin said.

Photo AFP

On December 2, a video was posted on social media in which the suspect criticised the French government and discussed what he described as the murder of innocent Muslims, AFP news agency reports.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, French President Emmanuel Macron sent his thoughts to all those affected by the “terrorist attack” and thanked the emergency services for their response.

“The national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office will now be responsible for shedding light on this affair so that justice can be done in the name of the French people,” the president said.

The attack comes less than two months after a teacher was killed in a knife attack at a high school in the northern city of Arras, prompting the French government to put the country on its highest level of national security alert.

Paris public museums and tourist sites have reopened following the attacks in the French capital on November 13.

Many of Paris’s tourist attractions, including the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay, closed on Saturday amid heightened security.

The institutions reopened at 13:00 local time following a minute’s silence to honor those who were killed.

A total of 129 people died in the attacks by Islamist militants.

Photo EPA

Photo EPA

People were targeted in bars and restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall and the Stade de France.

In explaining the decision to reopen the venues, France’s Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin said although France had suffered a tragic event, “culture is more than ever this symbolic place of self-discovery”.

Fleur Pellerin added the government would help to boost security measures at public cultural institutions in Ile-de-France, the region immediately surrounding Paris.

Its landmarks include the Louvre, which houses Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting, as well as the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Theaters were also ordered to close following the attacks, but most reopened on November 15.

Tourists visiting Eiffel Tower in Paris are being treated to a new glass floor, creating a sensation of walking on air nearly 200 feet above ground.

Visitors will be able to look down on Paris through a glass floor as part of a refurbishment of the tower.

Tourists visiting Eiffel Tower in Paris are being treated to a new glass floor, creating a sensation of walking on air nearly 200 feet above ground

Tourists visiting Eiffel Tower in Paris are being treated to a new glass floor, creating a sensation of walking on air nearly 200 feet above ground

The $37.5 million reconstruction is likely to become a prime location for “selfies,” with the first visitors spending time on the floor turning their phones towards themselves and the glass floor below.

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Famous Eiffel Tower in Paris has been evacuated on Saturday evening following an anonymous phone-call threatening an attack.

An estimated 1,400 people were visiting the site when France’s anti-terrorism police made the decision to clear it.

Eiffel Tower has been evacuated following an anonymous phone-call threatening an attack

Eiffel Tower has been evacuated following an anonymous phone-call threatening an attack

A security perimeter was set up around the world-famous monument and police said a search could take several hours, French media reported.

The Eiffel Tower has been threatened several times in recent years. In 2011, 4,000 people were cleared from it.

L’Express news website said that tourists and staff were told to come down from the tower at around 19:00 local time on Saturday.

Security guards were also ordered to leave, a decision described as unusual.

Police then searched the area with sniffer dogs for possible explosives.

Security has recently been stepped up across the country amid concerns about threats to France over its military campaign in Mali.