A terror attack in Paris has hit France like a seismic shock only three days before voting begins in a presidential election where anything seems possible, even the end of the European Union.
A gunman shot three policemen on Champs-Elysées Thursday evening, killing one and wounding two, before being shot dead. The government says the attack was “of a terrorist nature.” The shooting took place as the candidates were just going on the air to make their final televised appeal to voters.
Far-right populist Marine Le Pen and neophyte centrist Emmanuel Macron are slight favorites in the April 23 first-round vote to ultimately elect a French president. Meanwhile, the world is nervously awaiting a possible “Frexit” — French withdrawal from the EU — after the UK’s “Leave” vote on Brexit and Donald Trump’s election in the United States.