iStock/Thinkstock(PARIS) — A man has been arrested on a highway north of Paris following a manhunt for the driver of a vehicle that struck six French soldiers Wednesday morning, officials said.
A spokesperson for France’s interior ministry confirmed the arrest to ABC News but would not say whether the man was the suspect in Wednesday’s incident.
The Paris prosecutor’s office also confirmed the arrest to ABC News, saying the man was driving the car authorities were searching for on the A16 highway north of Paris.
Shortly after 8 a.m. local time Wednesday, six French soldiers were on their way to a routine patrol in the western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret when a vehicle slammed into them and sped away. The soldiers were leaving an army barracks near De Vedon, authorities said.
The vehicle in question was reportedly a dark-colored BMW, according to French media.
Authorities said all six soldiers, two of whom are seriously injured, were taken to a military hospital in the Hauts-de-Seine area of France.
Ten-thousand soldiers have been deployed on foot patrol since January 2015 after the attacks on the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Levallois-Perret Mayor Patrick Balkany told French news channel BFMTV that he had “no doubt” the incident was a “deliberate” attack.
The U.S. Embassy in France posted an alert on Twitter early Wednesday, alerting U.S. citizens of “an attack on military personnel” and urging them to “avoid the area.”