Paris Orly Airport Shooting: Man Shot Dead After Grabbing Soldier's Gun

Security forces shot dead a man who seized a soldier's gun at Paris Orly airport Saturday. A police officer was shot and injured in a separate incident in Stains, north of the French capital, by the same earlier in the day, the French Interior Ministry said, according to local reports.

The man, apparently a radicalized Muslim, took refuge in a shop around an hour after he shot and wounded the police officer.

Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told Agence France-Press: "A man took a weapon from a soldier then hid in a shop in the airport before being shot dead by security forces."

Officials from the Interior Ministry confirmed it was the same man who shot a police officer in Paris' northern outskirts earlier in the morning. Police sources told Reuters the man was a "radicalized Muslim known to intelligence services."

This incident comes as France is on alert just weeks away from presidential elections. About 3,000 people were evacuated from the second largest airport in the French capital in the morning and both terminals were closed. Airport authorities kept posting updates on its social media site.

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Brandet said no one was wounded in the incident. The demining operation is complete but the airport is still closed.

The soldier whose gun the man tried to seize was a member of the army's " Sentinelle " operation which is responsible for patrolling airports and other key sites since January 2015 when Islamist attackers killed 12 people at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Meanwhile, a large number of people were stranded at the airport.

The country remains on high alert after attacks by Islamic State group's militants killed dozens of people in the past two years, including coordinated bombings and shootings in Paris in November 2015 in which 130 people were killed. A state of emergency is in place till the end of July, according to reports.

The airport shooting will have no impact on a trip to Paris by Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, who will end their first official visit to France in Paris Saturday, a British spokesman said, according to Reuters.