Charlie Hebdo anniversary: Paris police shoot dead man with fake suicide vest claiming to be responsible for attack

Paris police have shot dead a knife-wielding man claiming to be responsible for the Charlie Hebdo shooting attack on the incident’s one year anniversary.

The man was shot outside a police station in the northern Parisian town of Barbes, after parading with a meat cleaver and yelling “Allahu Akbar” - “God is great” in Arabic.

An image of the Daesh flag was found on the body of the suspect, along with a fake suicide vest and handwritten note in Arabic that claimed responsibility for the attack on the French satirical newspaper.

Investigations identified the man as 20 year old Sallah Ali, a prominent thief born homeless in Casablanca, Morocco, according to the French newspaper L’Express.

The Paris prosecutor’s office says the attack took place at 11:30am, exactly one year to the minute of the Charlie Hebdo attack. It follows on from a spate of terror-related attacks throughout France and Europe, which prompted countries like Spain and Belgium to be placed on a high terror-threat alert.

Local journalist Anna Polonyi, an editor at the International New York Times, could see the attack from her flat and posted photos to social media showing what appeared to be a bomb-disposal robot near the body of the suspect.

She told Reuters that her sister had seen the attack first-hand while in the flat, detailing how police shouted at the man and shot him as he was running toward them.

Just minutes before the incident, French President Francois Hollande had commended French police and called for officials to work together in a speech about last year’s terror incidents, including the November 2015 bombings which claimed over 100 lives.

“Faced with these adversaries, it is essential that every service - police, gendarmerie, intelligence, military - work in perfect harmony, with the greatest transparency, and that they share all the information at their disposal,” he said.

In his speech, Hollande detailed plans to employ 5,000 extra police and gendarmes to existing forces by 2017. He also defended drastic security measures put in place by France since November that did not match the views the government once held.

“Terrorism has not stopped posing a threat to our country,” he said.

Since the Bataclan terror attacks last November in Paris, French authorities have increased efforts in airstrikes on Daesh groups in Iraq and Syria.

The nation has become the second largest contributor to the US-coalition against Deash militants.

France also launched a three month state of security following the November Paris terror attacks, during which security police launched hundreds of raids on mosques, restaurants, hotels and homes.