French security forces often a target of attack
Six French soldiers injured when a car ploughed into them in a Paris suburb on Wednesday are part of an anti-terror force set up across France after the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks. France launched a manhunt after the vehicle sped off and the anti-terror unit of the Paris prosecutors' office has launched a probe but the motives are still not known. The country has been hit by a wave of jihadist attacks since January 2015, some targeting soldiers and the police. - 2015: First wave of attacks - - January 7-9: Two gunmen storm the Paris offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo killing 12 people, among them two policemen. A policewoman is shot dead just outside Paris the following day by a gunman who later took hostages at a Jewish supermarket. All the attackers, self-proclaimed jihadists, are killed in police shootouts. - February 3: A knife-wielding man is arrested after attacking three soldiers guarding a Jewish community centre in Nice on the French Riviera. In custody, he expresses his hatred for France, the police, the military and Jews. - 2016: Police couple ambushed - - January 1: A man drives at four soldiers outside a mosque at Valence, southeastern France. One soldier is slightly injured. - January 7: A man wielding a meat cleaver and a fake explosives belt is shot dead as he tries to attack a Paris police station. Police find a declaration of allegiance to IS on his body. - June 13: A jihadist stabs a police officer to death outside his home in Magnanville, west of Paris before slitting the throat of his wife, also a police officer. He is shot dead by police. He had already claimed the killings on behalf of IS on social media. - 2017: Champs-Elysees shooting - - February 3: A man armed with a machete in each hand attacks four soldiers at Paris's Louvre Museum, shouting "Allahu Akbar". Police shoot and injure the attacker, a 29-year-old Egyptian. One soldier is slightly hurt. - March 18: A 39-year-old man is killed at Paris's Orly airport after attacking a soldier and shouting: "I am ready to die for Allah." - April 20: A known terror suspect shoots dead a policeman and wounds two others on the Champs-Elysees, before being killed in return fire, in an assault claimed by IS. - June 6: A police officer shoots and wounds a 40-year-old Algerian shouting "This is for Syria" who tried to attack him with a hammer outside the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. - June 19: A 31-year-old man burns to death after driving a car loaded with two gas bottles, weapons and ammunition into a police van on the Champs-Elysees. No one else is hurt. - August 5: Soldiers at the Eiffel Tower arrest a knife-wielding man, a psychiatric patient, after he leaps a security barrier shouting "Allahu Akbar". - August 9: A car drives into soldiers outside a military barracks in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, injuring six. A suspect is later arrested after being stopped on a motorway at the wheel of a BMW.
