Paris was plunged into panic when soldiers guarding the Louvre Museum shot an attacker who lunged at them with two machetes as the historic landmark went into lockdown.

Five men arrested this week in France were planning a terror attack as early as next week and were receiving their orders from an Islamic State group member based in Iraq or Syria, prosecutors have said.

French officials have identified the second man involved in the murder of a priest in a Normandy church.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed that Islamist terrorists “will not prevail” in the wake of Tuesday’s murder of a Catholic priest in northern France.

One of the terrorists involved in slitting the throat of a priest in Normandy was wearing an electronic surveillance tag at the time of the attack.

Ireland’s Catholic primate Archbishop Eamon Martin joined in the voicing of global shock as he offered prayers to those affected by the terrorist murder of an 86-year-old priest at his church in France.

The man responsible for the Nice terror attack is “probably linked to radical Islam” as France mourns the third massacre of its civilians in 18 months.

A man who stabbed a police commander and police administrator to death at their home in a Paris suburb pledged loyalty to the leader of the Islamic State (IS) group and had a list of other targets, including rappers, journalists, police officers, and public officials, the Paris prosecutor said.

A Frenchman suspected of killing two police officers declared his allegiance to Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and threatened to kill non-believers, according to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins.

The only suspected participant in the November 13 Paris attacks to be captured alive has been co-operating with police investigators and is “worth his weight in gold”, his lawyer said.

Attempted attack came a year after ‘Charlie Hebdo’ massacre

Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today.

As investigators hunt for leads in Europe’s worst terror attack in a decade, the Paris prosecutor laid out how three teams of assailants managed to kill at least 129 people in and around one of the world’s most heavily policed capitals.

French officials have identified one of the Paris terror attackers as seven people were detained in Belgium linked to the atrocities.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins has said three teams seem to have co-ordinated the attacks, and those that targeted the Bataclan concert hall, where 89 people died, mentioned Syria and Iraq.

Suspected Islamist gunman Ayoub el Khazzani has been formally charged with attempted murder with terrorist intent.

Terror probe launched as France on red alert for further attacks.

A man who beheaded his boss, pinned the head on a fence, and tried to blow up an industrial gas plant will be investigated on terrorism charges, the chief public prosecutor in France said, dismissing the suspect’s claim that his act was not motivated by connections with Islamist militants.

French security forces will get better weapons and protection to fight terror and the country will hire 2,600 new counter-terrorism officers, the prime minister has announced.

Four men with ties to one of the gunmen responsible for three days of terror in Paris are the first to be charged in connection with the attacks that left 20 people dead, including three attackers, the chief Paris prosecutor has said.

Details of how the police rescued hostages without a single loss to civilian life in the French terror attacks have emerged.

Key members of the French government will meet today to decide on new measures aimed at thwarting a repeat of the attacks in Paris that saw a massacre of 12 people at a satirical newspaper, and a supermarket bloodbath that left four hostages dead.

French detectives are continuing to search for fugitives suspected to have been involved in the Paris massacres, as details of how police foiled the terrorists’ operations have begun to unfold.

Four people who died in an attack against a Paris kosher grocery were killed when the assailant entered the store – not when police tried to rescue them.

One suspect sought in the deadly shooting at a French satirical paper has turned himself in, as police hunt for two heavily armed men with possible links to al-Qaida.

France’s president has urged the nation to stay united as it hunts gunmen who killed 12 people at the office of a satirical newspaper.

A Frenchman arrested over killings at a Belgian Jewish museum had travelled to Syria and claimed responsibility for the shootings in a video, prosecutors said today.

Police were hunting a lone gunman on the loose in Paris yesterday after he opened fire with a shotgun at the offices of a left-wing newspaper and a major bank before hijacking a car to take him to the Champs-Elysees avenue.

The Islamic extremist who tried to murder a French soldier in public has confessed to the crime, prosecutors say.

Police have found bomb-making materials in a car park near Paris as part of an investigation into an "extremely dangerous terrorist cell" linked to an attack on a kosher grocery.

French police have discovered bomb-making material in a car park linked to the weekend arrests of a dozen terror suspects, the state prosecutor said today.

A group of Islamic radicals have been charged with planning to kidnap a French judge.

A group of Islamic radicals have been charged with planning to kidnap a French judge.

A lawyer says a Frenchman suspected of helping his brother plot attacks against Jewish school children and paratroopers knew nothing about what was going on.

French prosecutors have filed preliminary murder and terrorism charges against the brother of a gunman who killed Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers in attacks that stunned the country.

Inspired by radical Islam and trained in Afghanistan, the gunman methodically killed French schoolchildren, a rabbi and paratroopers and faced down hundreds of police for 32 hours.

A 23-year-old gunman who said al-Qaida inspired him to kill seven people died in a hail of bullets as he scrambled out of a ground-floor window during a gun battle with police commandos.