An armed French soldier stands guard near the site of the incident. Picture: AFPSource:AFP

The soldiers, on a counter-terrorism patrol, were attacked at about 8am Paris time (4pm AEST) in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret, north of the city centre and the Arc de Triomphe.

French counter-terror prosecutors have opened an investigation into the attack.

According to French media reports, a man suspected to have carried out the attack was shot and arrested four hours after the attack on a motorway in the north of France.

The arrest on the A16 motorway turned violent and police officers opened fire on the suspect.

Two soldiers were seriously injured and taken to the Percy military hospital outside Paris. The other four escaped serious injuries.

There was no immediate word last night whether it was a terror attack.

The soldiers were deployed onto the streets of Paris as part of Operational Sentinelle, the operation launched when France declared a state of emergency after the terror attacks in November 2015 which killed 130 people.