What might have been a catastrophic suicide attack via car bomb on Paris’s Champs-Élysées has ended without any police or civilian injuries, and the alleged driver of the car dead.

A car deliberately hit a police van before bursting into flames on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in central Paris, police officials say.
The driver died in the incident. Police found a Kalashnikov rifle, handguns and gas bottles in the car.
“Security forces have been targeted in France once again,” Interior Minister Gérard Collomb said, calling it an “attempted attack”.
No law enforcement officers or civilian bystanders were hurt.

The attacker is being identified as a 31 year old “known extremist,” though his name has not been publicly released yet.

Paris attack: Champs-Elysees driver had explosives and rifle, was flagged for extremism | https://t.co/w6VpXXfD0X pic.twitter.com/CN6JGXfbBX

— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) June 19, 2017

A witness, who was just 20 metres from the incident, said: ‘Large bangs followed by what sounded like shots fired near a car with smoke coming out of it on Champs Elysees.’
He added that one person was on the ground and that everyone in the area was told to run.
A journalist who happened to be in the area at the time said the man deliberately crashed his car into the van causing his vehicle to be set alight.
Officers leapt into action and broke the car window to drag him from the flames.

Police immediately stripped the driver, who died at the scene, to make sure that he was unarmed and not wearing a suicide vest. It is unknown at this time whether it was the collision that killed him, or the car fire.

Champs-Elysées : un conducteur radicalisé fonce sur les gendarmes, ce que l'on sait https://t.co/9zcSdvNJeI pic.twitter.com/MDt58IhX1h

— lefredox (@lefredox) June 19, 2017

Paris continues to remain on alert, but we can all be thankful that this time, no police or civilians were harmed.