Man charged for ramming soldiers near Paris

French officials have charged a man for ramming a car into soldiers outside a barracks in an upmarket western suburb of Paris this month, injuring six, judicial sources said Thursday.

Police and rescue forces are seen on the scene where the man suspected of ramming a car into a group of soldiers on Wednesday in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret was shot and arrested on the A16 motorway, near Marquise, France, August 9, 2017. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

Hamou Benlatreche, a 36-year-old Algerian, was formally indicted by an anti-terrorism judge at a Paris hospital on Tuesday evening.

Investigators have not yet had the chance to interrogate Benlatreche as he was shot and seriously wounded during his arrest several hours after ploughing a black BMW into troops in Levallois-Perret on the morning of August 9.

He was eventually arrested several hours later after a dramatic motorway chase near the port of Calais in northern France.

He remains in hospital in the Paris area.

Last week, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the suspect had scoped out the Levallois-Perret area three days before the attack and that the contents of his phone suggested an interest in the Islamic State (IS) group and a desire to go to Syria.

Since early 2015, France has been hit by a series of deadly attacks by Islamic extremists which have killed more than 230 people and injured hundreds more.

Of late, many of the attacks have been relatively low-tech, involving lone wolf suspects using vehicles as weapons or blades, and often targeting the security forces.

The suspect lives in Bezons, about eight kilometres (five miles) from the attack site, and has no previous convictions.