A suspected assassin has been caught trying to break into Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential palace in Paris.

The 25-year-old intruder was wrestled to the ground as he tried to slip past guards at the main entrance of the Elysee Palace on Monday afternoon.

A police official said the man was searched at the scene and found to be armed with a
knife and a Taser-type weapon that fires high-voltage electric darts.

Mr Sarkozy’s security detail were treating the break-in as an assassination attempt on the president. The official said the intruder was ‘being held in custody and questioned about his intentions’.
He said the man had the weapons concealed beneath a thick, military jacket.

'The security team that protects the president are treating this attempted breach of security as an attempt on his life,' the official added.

A witness said that a group of men were at the palace’s entrance when guards pulled
one man aside.

Then there was a ‘violent struggle’ that ended with the man being ‘dragged down onto the ground and held there at gunpoint’.
'A police van arrived and he was pushed into the back and driven away,' he said.

Mr Sarkozy was inside the palace at the time meeting prime minister Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro.