Policewoman Shooting Linked With Paris Attack

French police are now linking the shooting of a female officer on Thursday with the brothers suspected of the Charlie Hebdo attack, according to AFP.

Police had not previously connected the murders of 12 people in Paris on Wednesday morning to Thursday's shooting in Montrouge, just south of the capital.

But it has now emerged the Montrouge suspect was a member of the same jihadist group as brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.

Earller it was reported that two people in his immediate circle had been taken into custody.

The Montrouge shooting happened after police and maintenance workers were called to the scene of a traffic accident involving a grey Renault Clio.

Police say the gunman, who is still on the run, was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was carrying a pistol and an automatic rifle.

He opened fire and killed the trainee policewoman, named as Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 25. A street sweeper was seriously injured in the incident.

Witness Ahmed Sassi, 38, who was watching from his kitchen window, said "panic" broke out.

He said he saw "a police officer standing in the road. A man with dark clothes shot them at point blank range, while continuing to run."

The shooting is being treated as a "terrorist act" by the French authorities.

Security forces detained a man soon afterwards, although police said he was not the shooter.

They then raided a nearby hotel but the operation was unsuccessful.

The attack came just hours before a minute's silence was held across France in honour of the Charlie Hebdo victims.

The Kouachi brothers are now holed up in a printworks near Charles de Gaulle airport.