'Islamist' French factory attack - in pictures

Special forces of France's Research and Intervention Brigades (BRI) escort an unidentified woman and a child as they leave the building housing the apartment of a man suspected of carrying out an attack in Saint-Priest near Lyon

An Islamist terrorist tied his boss’s severed head to a fence before making a failed ram raid on a chemical factory near Lyon.

Investigators believe the attack was intended to take scores of lives.

Images caught on security cameras of the attacker placing the head on the factory fence before the attack have shocked France. The head was wrapped in an Isis banner carrying a message in Arabic.

French special Police forces escort a woman from a residential building during a raid in Saint-Priest, near Lyon

Special forces of France's Research and Intervention Brigades (BRI) leave the building housing the apartment of a man suspected of carrying out an attack in Saint-Priest near Lyon

Police investigators carry banners with illegible Arabic writing on them

Emergency personnel work at the scene of a suspected Islamist attack, outside the Air Products factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier

Investigating police officers work outside the plant where an attack took place, in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, southeast of Lyon

French police secure the entrance of the Air Products company

Investigators believe that those who planned the raid assumed that the whole factory would explode

French security and emergency services gather at the scene

French police and firefighters secure the entrance of the Air Products company

The placing of a severed head on the factory’s fence appeared to be deliberately provocative reference to the Isis practice of beheading enemies

It is understood that the attacker had previously been under surveillance by the French security services for alleged involvement with Salafist Islamic radicals

Investigators believe that the Air Products factory was targeted because it was US-owned and was assumed to contain highly explosive chemicals

French police cordon off the area of the attack