A knife-wielding man who attempted to attack security forces outside the Louvre museum in Paris was shot and injured on Friday, highlighting France’s security and terror threat just three months before the French presidential election.

Hundreds of tourists were held in secure areas of the Louvre, one of the world’s most visited museums, after the man was shot five times by soldiers on patrol outside, reported The Guardian.

Believed to be in his 30s, he struck at around 10am on a stairway in the Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping centre near the entrance to the museum. Wielding a knife, he ran at a group of soldiers on patrol shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest), said the report citing witnesses.

The incident, in which one soldier was slightly injured, was described by the French prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, as “terrorist in nature”.

The suspect has not been formally identified but French police had established that the man was a 29-year-old Egyptian who arrived in France on January 26 after obtaining a tourist visa in Dubai, the Paris prosecutor said.

Police searched an apartment the man had rented in Paris and are now working to establish whether he acted alone, on impulse, or on orders from someone, prosecutor François Molins told a news conference.

The man was wearing a black T-shirt with a death’s head emblem when he attacked soldiers checking bags near the museum’s shopping mall “with a machete in each hand”, Molins was quoted as saying in the report.

He struck one soldier and knocked another one to the ground. When he continued his attacks the soldier on the ground shot him in the abdomen, Molins said.

Two rucksacks carried by the suspected attacker were checked by bomb disposal specialists at the scene and were found not to contain explosives, he added.

The incident sparked fresh warnings from politicians about the terrorist and security threat, with France still reeling from a string of terrorist attacks that have killed more than 200 people over the past two years. France remains under a state of emergency following the Paris attacks of November 2015, which killed 130 people.

The French president, François Hollande, praised the soldiers, saying: “This operation undoubtedly prevented an attack whose terrorist nature leaves little doubt.”

The economy, immigration and security are major issues for voters in the two-round French presidential election in April and May. The country has shifted politically to the right after five years of the Socialist Hollande.

Polls show that Marine Le Pen, of the anti-immigration, far-right Front National, can reach the final round runoff.