Paris prosecutor: ISIS flag was found on knife-wielding attacker

The prosecutor's office in Paris said a knife-wielding man who French police shot dead Thursday morning was found carrying a piece of paper with the Islamic State flag, Agence France-Presse reported.

The attacker, who police said tried to enter a police station shouting "Allahu akbar," was wearing what appeared to be a suicide belt as well. But law enforcement later determined it to be a fake belt.

The incident took place exactly one year after a deadly Islamist militant attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in the French capital. It also occurred just minutes after President Francois Hollande had given a speech in an another part of Paris to mark the anniversary.

France has been on high alert ever since the shootings last January at the Charlie Hebdo office and at a Jewish supermarket. In total, 17 people died over three days.

Security concerns were further heightened in November, when 130 people were killed in the capital in coordinated shootings and suicide bombings that targeted a music hall, bars and restaurants and a soccer stadium.

The Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS that controls swathes of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the November 13 attacks. Several of the militants involved in those attacks hailed from France, as was also the case with last January's attackers.

In Thursday's incident, police said the man tried to force his way into the police station in the 18th district in northern Paris, an area that ISIS said it had been planning to hit as part of the November attacks.

"According to our colleagues, he wanted to blow himself up," an official at the Alternative Police union said. "He shouted Allahu Akbar and had wires protruding from his clothes. That's why the police officer opened fire."

Officials said bomb-disposal experts were on site.

Journalist Anna Polonyi, who could see the outside of the police station from the window of her flat, posted photos on social media that showed what appeared to be a bomb-disposal robot beside the body.

She told Reuters that her sister, in the flat with her, had seen the incident happen. She said police shouted at the man and that he then started running toward them before they shot him.

In his speech, Hollande promised to better equip police to prevent further militant attacks.

The president also defended draconian security measures implemented since November that his Socialist government had once shunned.

"Terrorism has not stopped posing a threat to our country," Hollande said, repeating a promise to boost police recruitment and resources.

Since the November attacks, Paris has increased its efforts at striking jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, becoming the second largest contributor to the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

Security measures at home have included a three-month state of emergency during which the police have launched hundreds of raids on homes, mosques, restaurants and hotels.

In the United States, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump noted the incident. He also appeared to refer to a separate slew of New Year's Eve attacks in Cologne, Germany, where approximately 90 women reported being robbed, threatened, or sexually molested, authorities said.

"GET SMART!" Trump wrote on Twitter.