PARIS — A knife-wielding man shouting “Allahu akbar” attacked soldiers on patrol Friday near the Louvre Museum in Paris in what the French president called a terrorist attack. The soldiers first tried to fight off the attacker and then opened fire, shooting him five times.

The attack at an entrance to the shopping mall that extends beneath the museum sowed panic and highlighted again the threat that French officials say hangs over the country, which was hit repeatedly by extremist attacks in 2015 and 2016.