(Newser) – An anti-terror investigation has been opened in France after a man rammed a car carrying firearms and a gas canister into a police van on Paris' famed Champs Élysées Monday afternoon. The driver, reportedly a 31-year-old French national who had known links to suspected extremists and was on a terror watchlist, was killed in the incident; no other injuries were reported. France's interior minister described the incident as an "attempted attack" on a convoy of police vehicles that were on the avenue, the Guardian reports. An explosion followed the collision, and a journalist on the scene says he saw police break the car's windows in order to pull the driver out. Bomb squad officers were on the scene, the AP reports.