PARIS • A car burst into flames after it crashed into a police van on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris yesterday.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the incident had been an attempted attack, and that the driver was dead.

Police sources earlier told Agence France-Presse that a Kalashnikov rifle, handguns and gas bottles were found in the man's Renault Megane.

The incident came just two months after a policeman was shot and killed on the world-renowned avenue, three days before the first round of France's presidential election.