A French policeman was shot dead and three other people were wounded in a terrorist attack on Paris' famed Champs Elysees boulevard on Thursday, three days before France's presidential election. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, in which the assailant, identified as 39-year-old French national Karim Cheurfi, was shot dead by police. "A little after 9 p.m., a vehicle stopped alongside a police car which was parked [on the boulevard]. Immediately, a man [Cheurfi] got out and fired on the police vehicle, mortally wounding a police officer," Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said. Brandet told reporters at the scene that authorities were trying to determine whether "one or more people" might have helped Cheurfi. The wide avenue that leads to the Arc de Triomphe had been crowded with Parisians and tourists enjoying a spring evening. Once Cheurfi opened fire, people fled in all directions, terrified. Police quickly cleared the area, which remained empty well into the night, with only heavily armed security forces and police vehicles to be seen. The French authorities called on the public to avoid the area. A kitchen worker who witnessed the attack told Reuters he was walking out of a shop and saw a man get out of a car and open fire with a rifle on a policeman. "The policeman fell down," he said. "I heard six shots. I was afraid. I have a 2-year-old girl and I thought I was going to die. ... He shot straight at the police officer." Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said two policemen and a foreign female tourist were wounded. He also said investigators were still assessing whether Cheurfi had accomplices. The Islamic State terrorist organization, which is being driven out of its areas of territorial control in Iraq and Syria by Western-backed coalitions and has hundreds of French-speaking fighters, claimed responsibility for Thursdays shooting via its Amaq news agency, naming the attacker as Abu Yousif al-Belgiki, a nom de guerre. The group also claimed responsibility for a car-ramming attack in London last month that killed four, but gave no name or details. French President Francois Hollande had said he was convinced the "cowardly killing" was an act of terrorism. U.S. President Donald Trump quickly responded to the tragedy, offering his condolences to the French people after hearing reports of the shooting. "It looks like another terror attack," he said. A police arrest warrant issued earlier on Thursday warned of a dangerous individual who had come into France by train from Belgium that day. According to police sources, the terrorist was known to intelligence services. French television networks reported that the French national was known for previous violent crimes, and French newspaper Le Parisien archives say Cheurfi was convicted of attacking a police officer in 2001. Officers searched Cheurfi's family home in Chelles, a town east of Paris, a police source said. "The sense of duty of our policemen tonight averted a massacre. ... They prevented a bloodbath on the Champs Elysees," Interior Minister Matthias Fekl told reporters. France has lived under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks mostly perpetrated by young men who grew up in France and Belgium and that have killed more than 230 people in the past two years. The incident came as French voters prepared go to the polls on Sunday in the most tightly contested presidential election in decades. "We shall be of the utmost vigilance, especially in relation to the election," said Hollande, who is not running for re-election. Earlier this week, two men were arrested in Marseille who police said had been planning an attack ahead of the election. A machine gun, two hand guns and three kilograms of explosives were among the weapons found at a flat in the southern city along with Islamic State propaganda materials, according to Molins. That incident brought issues of security and immigration back to the forefront of the campaign, with the anti-immigration National Front leader Marine Le Pen repeating her call for Europe's partly open borders to be closed. On Thursday, speaking after a television appearance, she said she was "deeply angry" as well as sad for the police victims "because not everything is done ... to protect our compatriots. They need more than our compassion." Candidates in the election said they had been warned about the Marseille attackers. Francois Fillon, who is the conservative candidate, said he would cancel the campaign events he had been planning for Friday. He also called for campaigning generally to be suspended, although from midnight on Friday the law says it has to stop anyway. Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said campaigning should continue. In November 2015, 130 people were killed and 368 were wounded in a series of near-simultaneous gun-and-bomb attacks in Paris. Islamic State claimed responsibility then too. Two of the 10 known perpetrators were Belgian citizens and three others were French.
