France has experienced a number of high-profile attacks in recent years, and terrorism is considered a top issue in the country’s presidential election, which is set to begin on Sunday.
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Macron after Thursday’s attack said Le Pen’s plans were “nonsense” and he’d improve intelligence with a centralized anti-terror force.
Second comes Le Pen, improved her score by one percentage point to 23 percent. “Enough of laxism, enough of naivety”, Le Pen said.
Emmanuel Macron, who is leading the polls, is a former investment banker and was outgoing President Francois Hollande’s Economy minister, until he floated his own party.
Polling stations opened on Saturday in French overseas territories and voting will continue Sunday on the mainland in one of the most unpredictable presidential elections in France’s history.
Conservative candidate Fillon and far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon have closed the gap substantially in the last two weeks.
Macron, 39, is seeking to become France’s youngest ever president and has campaigned on a strongly pro-EU and pro- business platform.
Le Pen, slightly behind frontrunner Macron in the polls, has already reacted to the attack by saying she will introduce tougher immigration and border control, and she will likely continue to capitalize on it, said Françoise Boucek, lecturer at the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London.
A total of 11 candidates are competing for the French presidency this year.
One officer was killed and two police officers were seriously wounded when the attacker emerged from a auto and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers outside a Marks & Spencer’s department store at the center of the Champs-Elysees, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said.
A policeman stands guard near the Boulevard des Filles-du-Calvaire after an attack November 13, 2015 in Paris, France.
Fillon and Macron also hastily convened televised briefings in which they vowed to protect the country.
“Some haven’t taken the full measure of the evil”, 63-year-old Mr. Fillon said, promising an “iron-fisted” approach.
Unpopular incumbent President Francois Hollande made the unusual move a year ago of pledging to not stand for re-election.
Shop owners and restaurant managers on the bustling Champs Elysees, in the heart of Paris, described the chaotic scenes that followed the attack.
Veteran left-winger Melenchon, 65, was the only one of the four to stick to his schedule.
James and Sara Heuser, who married about a year ago, were dining in a restaurant on Champs Elysees when they first heard shots being fired in yesterday’s Paris attack.
He was killed while trying to flee on foot.
The attacker was identified from papers left in his auto.
The claim had raised concerns that a possible second attacker could be on the loose.
More than 50,000 police officers were on hand for security in Paris this week, as the vote nears. The prosecutor said Cheurfi was arrested in February, but later released for lack of evidence of a threat.
Police sources said he served time for previous armed assaults on law enforcement officers.
Although Karim Cheurfi was known to French authorities he was not on a watch list of people suspected of posing a security risk, a spokesperson for the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
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The two suspected Islamic radicals were arrested Tuesday in Marseille and police seized guns and explosives.
