France Election: Le Pen wants Islamist mosques closed

Over 50,000 police backed by elite units of the French security services were on high alert, patrolling the streets less than three days after a gunman shot dead a policeman and wounded two others on the central Champs Elysees avenue.

That all changed Thursday when Cheurfi, a Frenchman born in the Paris suburbs, opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the crowded boutique-lined boulevard synonymous with French glamour, striking a police officer with two bullets to the head and wounding two others before being shot and killed by police. A German tourist was also injured.

But a year later, Cheurfi was back in prison for violating parole and wasn't released until October 2015, after which he was required to regularly report his whereabouts to police, Molins said.

Jugele was among the officers who responded to the gun-and-bomb attack on Paris' Bataclan concert hall on November 13, 2015, among a wave of assaults in the French capital that killed 130 people, he told People.com.

The Champs Elysees attack was claimed by militant group Daesh.

France's legislative election in June now takes on a vital importance, with huge questions about whether Le Pen and even the more moderate Macron will be able to rally sufficient lawmakers to their causes.

The US president said that he believed the attack would be a boost for the far-right leader because she's the candidate who is "strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France". Speaking Friday on RTL radio, Macron said: "What our attackers want is death, symbolism, to sow panic (and) to disturb a democratic process, which is the presidential election". He said they express a choice "outside the system".

U.S. presidents typically avoid weighing in on specific candidates running in overseas election.

None of the four main French candidates can afford to be neutral on the European Union, whether they portray it as the source of all woes or a guarantee of peace and stability.

The two top finishers in Sunday's election will advance to a run-off on 7 May.

Le Pen has moved quickly to present herself as the strongest defender against Islamist radicals in a country scarred by a string of attacks that have claimed 239 lives since 2015. Thursday's attack reminds voters of the security challenges the country is facing, Boucek said. She promised to beat "Islamic terrorism".

A second possible impact of the Champs-Elysees shooting is that "security resurfaces on the agenda of political and public agendas", which could possibly give "a some extra but little points" to candidates such as conservative Francois Fillon and Marine Le Pen, far-right National Front (FN) party representative in presidency race, according to the expert. Le Pen, Fillon and Macron cancelled their final rallies Friday.

Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration and anti-EU National Front, was given 22 percent by both institutes.

Meanwhile, Bernard Cazeneuve, the Socialist prime minister, accused Ms Le Pen of "shamelessly seeking to exploit fear and emotion".

He said the goal of terrorists was to "destabilize" the country. "I'm ready, I'll be relentless in protecting you".

Independent centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron poses with students of the Moliere school for a group photo in Les Mureaux, west of Paris, France, March 7, 2017.

Socialist candidate Manuel Valls, whose party holds a majority in the legislature and whose President Francois Hollande is the most unpopular in modern French record-keeping, got just 6 percent. He is also in favour of working with Russian Federation on worldwide issues like Syria. "It makes it more likely that Le Pen will qualify and means a slightly better chance that Fillon could qualify too", Webber said.

Leading presidential candidates have urged greater counterterrorism measures in a campaign already under a state of emergency.

Le Pen and Melenchon blame free trade pacts for killing French jobs and want to renegotiate them.

Fillon said that if elected, his foreign policy priority would be the destruction of ISIS.

Melenchon is running for president for the second time after finishing in fourth place five years ago.