Paris shooting: Female police officer dead following assault rifle attack the morning after Charlie Hebdo killings

The French interior minister has said the incident was not connected with the assault on the magazine offices

Emergency workers tend to one of the injured after the shooting in the Montrouge area in southern Paris (AFP/Getty Images)

A female police officer has died of her injuries after she was shot in southern Paris this morning, less than 24 hours after the gun attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Two men with assault rifles shot at Officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27, who had only been in the job for 15 days, her colleague and a street cleaner after their car was involved in a road accident. One of the gunmen was reported to have been arrested at the scene. The other fled.

Police sources told the AFP news agency that two suspects were in custody, one was a 52-year-old-man. The French interior minister said that he did not believe that the shooting was connected with the Charlie Hebdo killings.

The street cleaner was reportedly shot when he stepped in to try and disarm the gunman. He is said to be in a serious condition in hospital.

A convoy of heavily armed counter-terrorism police arrived at the scene of the shooting shortly before 11am local time.

(Graphic by John Bradley)

Around 30 balaclava-clad officers from the specialist Raid force arrived in five vehicles, including an armoured lorry.

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Police sources at the scene said the shooter had fled on foot.

The Raid team seemed to be focusing on a cafe on Avenue Pierre Brosdolette where the shooting took place. Officers were seen unloading ballistic shields and seemingly preparing for an operation.

The heavily-armed police team later left the Montrouge scene after apparently finding no trace of the man responsible for the earlier shooting.

Earlier, police union officials said the suspect in the shooting, which has not been formally linked to the Charlie Hebdo attack, had been armed with a pistol and a semi-automatic rifle.

Emmanuel Cravello, of the Alliance police union, said: “It seems the assailant stopped the vehicle in which he was travelling and opened fire, fatally wounding a female officer. He was armed with a pistol and an automatic weapon. He then fled the scene, apparently leaving the car.”

The vehicle was a white Renault Clio, the same type as that taken by the Charlie Hebdo attackers.

The car believed to belong to the gunman was reportedly been found by police around two-and-a-half miles from the scene.

Police said that it was too early to say whether the incident was connected with the assault on the offices of Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday which killed 12 people. AFP reported this morning that the two suspects wanted over the Charlie Hebdo attack had been located in northern France.

Eye-witnesses said that one of the gunmen was of "African appearance" suggesting that he was not one of the two Franco-Algerian brothers sought for the Charlie Hebdo killings. Another witness said that he was dressed in black and wearing a bullet-proof vest.

The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, speaking at the scene, said it was unclear whether the two incidents were linked. He appealed for “calm and restraint”.

Overnight on Wednesday, there were disturbing reports of apparent revenge attacks on Muslim targets in several parts of France. None of the attacks caused deaths or injuries.

French police forensic scour the scene of an explosion at a kebab shop damaged following an explosion near a mosque, in Villefranche-sur-Saone, eastern France

At Villefranch-sur Saone in eastern France, a makeshift explosive device was detomated outside a kebab restaurant close to a mosque. Local police decined to make a direct lin with the Charlie Hebdo attack.

Two shots were fired at a Muslim prayer hall at Port la Nouvells in Aude in southern France. In Caromb, near Avignon, shots were fired at a parked car belonging to a family of North African origin.