terrorist wearing fake suicide belt shot dead outside police station on Charlie Hebdo anniversar

French police are seen near a police station in the Rue de la Goutte d'Or near Barbes-Rochechouart metro station in the north of Paris after police shot a man dead as he was trying to enter the police station

Police in Paris shot dead a man wielding a meat cleaver and a fake suicide vest outside a police station while shouting Alahu Akbar, a year after Islamists killed 12 at Charlie Hebdo’s offices.

The assailant, described as “threatening” by police sources, was gunned down as he tried to force his way into the police station of Paris’ 18th arrondissement. He was found to be wearing a pouch taped to his coat with wires dangling from it. However, it later proved to be a “fake” suicide belt.

He was named by French media as Sallah Ali, a 20-year old homeless Moroccan born in Casablanca in 1995.

His finger prints matched those of a man arrested for theft in 2013 in southern France.

A scrap of paper found on his body said he wanted to act "to avenge the dead in Syria" and the man had "pledged allegiance to Isil", according to sources close to the inquiry.

Christiane Taubira, the French justice minister, said the fake belt and nature of his written claims suggested he was "unstable".She said there was a "heavy atmosphere in France in which unstable people" can be prompted to take violent action.

Police ordered passers-by to take shelter in shops in the road and stores were closed. Children were confined to the nearby school while bomb disposal experts and dogs combed the street to search for booby trapped vehicles. Stretches of nearby Paris metro lines were also briefly closed.“I heard something like four shots,” Lydie Quentin, president of local association A la Goutte-d’Or, situated near the police station. “I opened the door and the police asked me not to come out. That’s the only thing they asked us to do. Around here, all the shops have closed,” she told Le Monde.

The dead suspect reportedly had "no papers on him" and has not been identified.

The shooting came as a Paris court sentenced in absentia a key French member of Isil with ties to the Charlie Hebdo attackers to 15 years in prison.French authorities said Salim Benghalem, 35, was the leader of the so-called Buttes-Chaumont terrorist network that included Said and Cherif Kouachi, the brothers responsible for the deadly Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in January.

He has also been linked to Mehdi Nemmouche, the gunman suspected of opening fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people in May 2014.Mr Hollande said officers die in the line of duty "so that we can live free".

Following the January attacks, the government announced it planned to give police better equipment and hire more intelligence agents.

France has been on high alert ever since, and was struck again November 13 by extremists in attacks claimed by Isil that killed 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall and in bars and restaurants.

Six other IS foreign fighters were given sentences of between six and nine years.

Thursday's apparent foiled attack took place just as President François Hollande was paying tribute, elsewhere in Paris, to three police officers among the 17 dead in the attacks last January, which ended after two days of bloodshed in the Paris region.Since then it has been in a state of emergency, meaning authorities have sweeping powers to search houses and vehicles and arrest suspects.

In a New Year’s address to France’s security forces at Paris’ police headquarters, Mr Hollande told them that any attack on a policeman, gendarme or fireman was not just a crime but “an attack on the Republic”.

Describing 2015 as a “terrible” and “tragic” year, he said told forces that he would present next month a bill extending their powers to “respond to the challenges we face”, including the rules of armed engagement with terrorists.