Not identified yet, the man would have shouted "Allahou Akbar" (God is Great), and wanted to attack policemen before being shot dead by one of the servicemen at about midday local time (1100 GMT), news channel BFMTV said.
The presumed attacker was wearing a sort of belt but it was a fake, BFMTV added citing police source.
Police set up a security perimeter in the site where two schools in the same street of Goulette d'Or were locked down and nearby metro stations were closed.
Reports said the assailant could have a possible accomplice to conduct a dare time attack targeting police unit at the same time of last year's attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
"We can not rule out that the man was acting with accomplices, no option can be excluded, that is why the area was sealed off," Pierre Henri Brandet, interior ministry spokesman, told BFMTV.
The incident came shortly after French President Francois Hollande addressed for the first time a New Year greetings message to police services to honor the policemen killed while fulfilling their duties.
In his New Year's Eve address last Thursday, Hollande stressed that the country "has not finished with terrorism yet."
"The threat is still there. It remains in fact at its highest level, and we are regularly disrupting planned attacks," he added.
