The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office announced on Friday that it had taken up the investigation into a knife attack carried out earlier in the day against gendarmes near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The assailant died after being targeted by return fire from a gendarme.

Published on: 02/13/2026 - 7:58 p.m. Modified on: 02/14/2026 - 2:34 p.m.

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A man armed with a knife who threatened gendarmes on Friday February 13 under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris died from his injuries after being shot several times by one of them. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office has taken up the investigation, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from corroborating sources.

The events took place around 6 p.m., during the daily rekindling of the flame of the tomb of the unknown soldier, under the Arc de Triomphe, a stone's throw from the avenue des Champs-Élysées, when a man equipped with a knife and a pair of scissors rushed at a gendarme from the music of the mobile gendarmerie who was participating in the service of honor at the ceremony.

Another gendarme used his service weapon to neutralize the attacker, according to the Pnat.

Hit by several bullets, the man was transported to hospital. Early in the evening, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office announced in a press release that he had died from his injuries.

President Emmanuel Macron congratulated "the gendarmes who reacted immediately" and were thus able to "stop this terrorist attack", on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

In a message posted on the

Already convicted for the attack on two police officers

Born in 1978 in Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), the attacker, Brahim Bahrir, of French nationality, was listed as S for radicalization, according to a source close to the case. He was sentenced in 2013 in Belgium to 17 years of criminal imprisonment, said the Pnat, for stabbing two police officers at the Molenbeek metro station, in the suburbs of Brussels. He had injured them slightly.

After being incarcerated in Belgium, he was transferred to France on January 27, 2015, following a decision recognizing the enforceability of the judgment of the Brussels court of first instance, continued the prosecution.

After serving his sentence, "he was released from detention on December 24, 2025 and was, since then, subject to monitoring within the framework of judicial supervision ordered by the sentence enforcement court on June 17, 2025. He was also the subject of an individual measure of administrative control and surveillance", added the Pnat.

He had to report to the police station every day. He was domiciled in Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis), according to a source close to the case.

An investigation entrusted to the anti-terrorist section of the Paris criminal brigade

The music gendarme, initially presented as very slightly injured by the knife, was not, the weapon having "hit the collar of his gabardine", specified the Pnat.

The anti-terrorist prosecution announced immediately after the events that it had opened an open investigation, adding that a public prosecutor was going to the scene. The investigation was opened for attempted assassinations of a person holding public authority in relation to a terrorist enterprise and participation in a criminal terrorist association.

It was entrusted to the anti-terrorist section of the Paris criminal brigade, as coordinating service, the judicial police of the Paris police headquarters and the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI).

In the evening, a few CRS trucks, flashing lights, were parked on the Place de l'Etoile and blocking access to the tomb of the unknown soldier, noted an AFP journalist, while the surrounding bus stops were not served and the metro stations were closed.

Tourists under umbrellas filmed the monument without knowing what had happened there an hour before.

Traffic had resumed before 8 p.m. at Place de l'Etoile, but security forces were still present in large numbers. Around 9:30 p.m., members of the technical and scientific police inspected with flashlights the interior of a gendarmerie vehicle parked near the Arc de Triomphe square, with the front door open. A crime scene trooper was placed on the roof of the vehicle, according to the AFP journalist.

The attack took place while the gendarmes were carrying out a service of honor under the Arc de Triomphe, a stone's throw from the Champs-Élysées, for the ceremony of rekindling the flame at the tomb of the unknown soldier.

With AFP

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