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A work attributed to the street artist Banksy has been stolen from a busy street in central Paris.

The image of a masked rat holding a knife was painted on the back of a traffic sign in the third arrondissement, next to the Pompidou Centre, and had been protected from vandalism by a Plexiglass shield.

It is not the first work attributed to the artist to be stolen in Paris. Earlier this year a painting in homage to terror victims of the 2015 attack was stolen from the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where 90 people were killed in a jihadist attack.

Banksy does not often acknowledge his works, but did post an image of the stolen rat on his Instagram feed.

A police investigation has been launched.