Vehicle crashes into gendarmerie van in Paris

Two French police officials say the man who rammed into a police convoy on Paris' Champs-Elysees was a 31-year-old man from a Paris suburb who had been flagged for extremism.

PARIS A vehicle burst into flames after it crashed into a police van on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris on Monday, police and investigators said, adding that the driver was armed and it appeared to be a "deliberate" act. Police sources told AFP that a Kalashnikov assault rifle, handguns and gas canisters were found in the vehicle.

Karim Cheurfi, who the Islamic State later claimed as one of its fighters, shot police officers on the boulevard in April, killing one officer and injuring two others.

But French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb called it an "attempted attack" on security forces, and France's anti-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation.

On Wednesday, the French government is to unveil a new anti-terrorism law, created to allow the state of emergency to be lifted.

A man who died in the incident, after his legs were trapped under the van, had been sitting on the pavement while he was receiving first aid before the attack, police said.

Authorities quickly sealed off the world-famous Champs-Elysees avenue after a 31-year-old man on a terror watchlist rammed a auto loaded with guns and a gas bottle into a police.

No officers or civilians were injured in the attack.

Locals, Victoria Boucher and her daughter Chrystel, were attempting to visit the Champs-Elysees shortly after the attack.

Initial reports suggested that the man's auto burst into flames after hitting the gendarmerie van, after which police had to break windows to drag the unconscious driver from the vehicle.

Gendarmes jumped out of their vehicle, ran to his auto, smashed its windows and pulled him out in an apparent attempt to save him, according to witnesses, the Telegraph reported.

The "radicalised" attacker was later pictured being stripped naked by bomb squad officers.

Earlier this month an Algerian man attacked a policeman with a hammer outside Notre Dame cathedral, another key tourist draw, while troops shot dead a man at the capital's Orly airport in March after he attacked a soldier on patrol.

Collomb will introduce a proposal to extend the state of emergency in France at a meeting of ministers on Wednesday.

France has been on high security alert following a series of militant Islamist attacks in recent months. The officer's injuries were not serious.

Additional police were deployed near mosques in London and other cities following the attack. France is under a state of emergency after a string of deadly Islamic extremist attacks.