Two men were on Tuesday being held for questioning on suspicion that they supplied a handgun to the man who attacked a soldier in Paris’ Orly airport, a judicial source said.
The attacker, Ziyed Ben Belgacem, was shot dead as he tried to seize the weapon of a female soldier at Orly airport on Saturday, shouting “I am here to die for Allah.”
Traffic at Paris’s second airport was interrupted for hours after the incident.
Investigators have said that early indications were that Belgacem, who had an extensive criminal record, had been radicalized while in prison.
His father, who was held for questioning briefly after the incident, denied that his son was a terrorist, saying he drank alcohol and didn’t pray.
“And under the influence of alcohol and cannabis – that’s how you get there,” the elder Belgacem told broadcaster Europe 1.
News agency AFP, quoting judicial sources, on Sunday reported that an autopsy showed Belgacem had almost twice the legal blood alcohol limit for driving and had also taken cannabis and cocaine.
Before the attack at the airport, Belgacem had opened fire on a police officer at a checkpoint in the northern Paris suburb of Garges-les-Gonesse and had later stolen a car.
A state of emergency is in place in France in response to terrorist attacks by jihadist militants in Paris, Nice and elsewhere over the last two years that left at least 238 people dead.