French police open fire on car on the Champs-Elysees, Paris in ‘minor incident’ before Tour de France finish

The finish line of the Tour de France on the Champs-Elysees, Paris was the site of a tense scene earlier today. Around 8 am local time, as police and security officials were erecting barricades near the Place de la Concorde, anticipating the finale’s hundreds of thousands of spectators, a car tried to crash through. It appears that the vehicle hit a parked car in the Place de la Concorde, and in what resembled a hit and run, sped away by driving through the police cordon

In response, police opened fire. Two occupants were inside the car, reports say, and left the scene unharmed. A search is presently underway, but despite the events of the Tour’s final morning, authorities weren’t concerned about a wider threat to the race itself.

“This is a minor incident,” one official said. “It wasn’t aimed at the Tour de France; it’s not terrorism, it’s just a simple refusal to comply, as there are many every day.” Nonetheless, Skysports.com reported, the scene was a tense one after the incident. “Security remains very tight indeed,” reporter Enda Brady said. “This just seems to be one aggressive motorist who got a lot more than he bargained for.”

Tour officials, too, see no reason to worry about a related security threat as Stage 21 of the 2015 Tour de France — the final route of the race — rolls in to Paris.

The tense moment caps off a Tour marked by its share of controversy. The 2015 race has made headlines since before it began, with Dutch police threatening interference as a protest action, to ongoing, if predictable, concerns about the legitimacy of Chris Froome’s leading performance. This incident, it seems, comes as an oddly appropriate conclusion.

Speaking to Skysports.com, former Tour de France winner Stephen Roche described a startling moment.

“I was on the Champs-Elysees early this morning when, all of a sudden, I heard ‘bang, bang, bang,'” he said. “It was only a few hundred metres away. There is a lot of security on the scene now.”