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The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the Thursday night attack that killed a Paris police officer and injured two other officers and a tourist on the Champs-Elysees. Officials haven’t said if they believe that claim is credible, but they believe he was operating alone. Here’s a look at other extremist attacks in France over the past few years:
July 26, 2016: Two Islamic State militants attack a church during morning Mass in the small town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in western France, slitting the throat of the 85-year-old priest and wounding an 86-year-old parishioner. One nun escapes and gives the alert, and police shoot both attackers as they leave the church.
___
July 14, 2016: During Bastille Day celebrations in the Riviera city of Nice, a large truck is driven into a festive crowd, killing 86 people. The driver is shot dead. Islamic State extremists claim responsibility for the attack. The state of emergency in France is extended and extra protection, including robust barriers to prevent similar attacks, is put in place at major sites in France.
___
June 13, 2016: Two French police officers are murdered in their home in front of their 3-year-old son. The Islamic State group claims responsibility for the attack carried out by a jihadist with a prior terrorist conviction. He is killed by police at the scene.
___
Nov. 13, 2015: Islamic State militants kill 130 people in France’s worst atrocity since World War II. A series of suicide-bomb and shooting attacks is launched on crowded sites in central Paris, as well as the northern suburb of Saint-Denis. Most of those killed are in a crowded theater where hostages are taken.
Islamic State extremists claim responsibility and say it was in retaliation for French participation in airstrikes on the militant group’s positions in Syria and Iraq. It leads to the declaration of a state of emergency in France. Police powers are expanded.
___
Jan. 7, 2015: Two brothers kill 11 people inside the Paris building where the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is headquartered in what Islamic State extremists claim is retaliation for the publication of cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad. More people are killed subsequently in attacks on a kosher market in eastern Paris and on police. There are 17 victims in all, including two police officers. The attackers are killed.
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This article was written by The Associated Press from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.
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PARIS — Of the four candidates with a realistic chance to become France’s next president, three oppose Western sanctions against Russia.
Two would take France out of NATO’s military command, or perhaps remove it from the alliance altogether.
And the one candidate who fits neither category would dramatically increase European defense cooperation to lessen dependence on what he regards as an unreliable United States.
When French voters make their choices Sunday in the first round of the country’s utterly unpredictable presidential race, the status quo for Western security won’t be on the ballot. Instead the election could become yet another convulsive moment for a decades-old international security order that is still wobbling from the turbulence of President Trump.
In the run-up to the vote, attention both inside and outside France has focused on the political and economic consequences of a potential Frexit from the European Union or the euro currency. With the killing of a Paris police officer Thursday night in an attack claimed by the Islamic State, proposals to close borders and aggressively crack down on domestic security threats are also at the center of debate. But the election’s impact on NATO and other elements of Western defense could be equally profound.
Victory for either the far-right or the far-left — candidates representing either extreme are among those locked in the four-way contest for a ticket to the second round — would mark an especially pronounced break for a country that is one of two nuclear-armed powers in Europe, with the world’s sixth most powerful military and a seat on the U.N. Security Council.
“It would be catastrophic — the undoing of 65 years of foreign and security policy,” said François Heisbourg, an analyst with the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research and a former defense ministry official. “This is big.”
If there’s peril for the West, there’s opportunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia meddled in the U.S. election to help Trump, according to U.S. intelligence agencies. Whether it’s interfering in the French vote is less clear. But analysts say the election undoubtedly offers another potentially disruptive moment for the West that Russia would relish — and likely seek to exploit.
“Putin would take advantage,” Heisbourg said. “The risk of war in and out of Europe would be quite high.”
Not that anyone in France has been talking about it much.
With immigration, the economy and France’s European Union membership topping the campaign agenda, international security and defense are hardly mentioned in stump speeches.
To the extent that the issues are raised at all, it’s to promise a boost in spending for the country’s battle-weary armed forces. That, at least, is one area where there’s consensus among the main candidates.
Yet on more fundamental questions that have largely been overshadowed, there are sharp disagreements — as well as promises of a radical departure.
“No matter who wins,” a recent analysis by the London-based European Leadership Network concluded, “France’s security and defense policy will not be the same, and some candidates would bring revolutionary changes.”
The most dramatic shift would come if either the far-right’s Marine Le Pen or the far-left’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon manages to pull off a win — a prospect once dismissed as anything from unlikely to impossible, but now being seriously contemplated across Europe.
Despite coming from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both candidates are hostile toward NATO. Mélenchon has dismissed the alliance as a Cold War “anachronism” and an emblem of U.S. imperialism that he wants France to leave behind.
Le Pen also argues that NATO’s time has passed, and that France should at least abandon the alliance’s integrated command structure, if not ditch the 28-member organization altogether.
An admirer of Trump’s, she recently took rare issue with the U.S. president when he reversed course on earlier criticism of NATO and approvingly described it as “not obsolete.”
“I am coherent,” Le Pen told France Info radio in a dig at Trump and a confirmation of her own continuing anti-NATO views. “I don’t change my mind in a few days.”
Le Pen’s antipathy for the alliance at the heart of Western security since the aftermath of World War II appears to be rooted in her fondness for Putin. She even went so far as to make a visit to Moscow for a personal audience with the Russian president part of her campaign last month.
Le Pen, whose party received a 9-million-euro loan from a Moscow-based bank in 2014, has endorsed the Russian annexation of Crimea, called for a lifting of Western sanctions and proposed a new global power axis among Putin, Trump and, assuming she wins, herself.
“A new world has emerged in these past years,” she said during her Moscow visit. “It’s the world of Vladimir Putin, it’s the world of Donald Trump in the United States, it’s the world of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi in India, and I think that probably I am the one who shares with these great nations a vision of cooperation and not a vision of submission.”
But she’s hardly the only major candidate with pro-Russian views.
If anyone other than independent candidate Emmanuel Macron wins the vote, Putin would, at the very least, have a more sympathetic counterpart in the Élysée Palace.
Mélenchon, for instance, has accused the West of provoking Russia with its missile-defense systems and NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. He wants to lift sanctions, and revive historically close Russian-French ties — while weakening links across the Atlantic to the United States.
Center-right candidate François Fillon, meanwhile, has also emerged as a sharp sanctions critic, arguing the measures intended to punish Russia for its military intervention in Ukraine end up hurting the French economy.
Fillon, the subject of often-approving coverage in the Russian media, has long-standing ties to Moscow, and was paid tens of thousands of dollars to arrange a meeting between Putin and a Lebanese billionaire, according to reports in the French press. His campaign has denied the allegation.
Unlike Le Pen and Mélenchon, Fillon believes in the necessity of NATO — though he’s often been skeptical of it.
The only major candidate who does not favor a softer line on Russia is Macron. The 39-year-old goes out of his way in speeches to criticize Putin, knocking the leader’s well-documented reputation for political oppression and arguing that France, as the cradle of the Enlightenment, has a responsibility to speak out.
“Do not surrender to the siren call of those who argue that our principal ally will be Russia,” he told thousands of cheering supporters at a recent Paris rally. “We'll have to talk to Russia. But shouldn't we be outraged when human rights are violated?”
Macron’s plans for French security policy are less dramatic than those of his rivals. But he doesn’t advocate the status quo, either.
Instead Macron has pushed for Europe to develop its own integrated defense networks outside the structures of NATO. It’s an idea — shared by Fillon — that has long been kicked around on the continent, but has gained currency amid fears that Trump will withdraw or weaken the U.S.’s protective umbrella.
Those fears are well-founded, said Vincent Desportes, a retired French general.
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“Le Pen and Mélenchon say the defense of France needs to be French,” he said. “Macron and Fillon say the defense of France must be European.”
Common among their views is a recognition that France will need to invest more in a military left beleaguered by repeated deployments, including in Mali, the Central African Republic and the streets of Paris to guard against terrorism.
In a sign of the times, Desportes noted, no one is arguing the protection of France should be American.
Virgile Demoustier contributed to this report.
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Published on Apr 19, 2017
Tracklist below:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/album/shosta...
For physical sales: http://brilliantclassics.com/articles...
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7tHoHC...
If you like the works of Shostakovich, you can also check the following video “Shostakovich: Symphonies 1-6” :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSLp3...
After releasing the highly successful sets of Shostakovich symphonies (the award-winning cycle of Rudolf Barshai) and the string quartets ( highly acclaimed performances of the Rubio Quartet), this set presents the Jazz Suites, Ballet Suites and Film Music.
Shostakovich lived a live full of tension and controverses in the Stalin era. As a modernist he was reprimanded and threatened to be banned. As a sign of good behaviour, he wrote music for mass audiences, in a popular style. But Shostakovich being Shostakovich, he managed to suggest under the surface of the sometimes nearly vulgar music his unique sense of bitter irony and revolt.
The Jazz suites enjoy a huge popularity. The 'Second Waltz' from the first Suite gained world reputation through the arrangement of Andre Rieu. The film music for the Gadfly is famous for its Romance, which was used in a popular television series.
Excellent, idiomatic performances by the Ukrainian Orchestra under Theodore Kuchar.
00:00:00 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): March
00:03:09 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Dance No. 1
00:06:10 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Dance No. 2
00:09:54 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Little Polka
00:12:33 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Lyric Waltz
00:15:16 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Waltz No. 1
00:18:42 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Waltz No. 2
00:22:20 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Finale
00:24:44 Overture on Russian and Kirghiz Themes, Op. 115
00:34:13 Jazz Suite No. 1: Waltz
00:36:38 Jazz Suite No. 1: Polka
00:38:21 Jazz Suite No. 1: Foxtrot
00:42:16 Novorossijsk Chimes
00:44:57 Festive Overture, Op. 96
00:50:43 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Overture
00:56:22 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Polka
00:59:04 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Variation
01:00:55 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Tango
01:06:05 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Intermezzo
01:10:00 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Finale
01:13:30 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Waltz
01:15:57 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Russian Lubok
01:18:31 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Galop
01:20:33 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Adagio
01:27:57 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Pizzicato
01:29:28 The Golden Age, Ballet Suite, Op. 22a: Overture
01:33:18 The Golden Age, Ballet Suite, Op. 22a: Adagio
01:42:04 The Golden Age, Ballet Suite, Op. 22a: Polka
01:44:19 The Golden Age, Ballet Suite, Op. 22a: Dance
01:46:29 Hamlet Suite: Prelude
01:48:51 Hamlet Suite: The Ball at the Palace
01:52:36 Hamlet Suite: The Ghost
01:54:02 Hamlet Suite: In the Garden
01:57:11 Hamlet Suite: Hamlet & Ophelia
02:01:07 Hamlet Suite: Arrival of the Actors
02:03:22 Hamlet Suite: Poisoning Scene
02:10:52 Hamlet Suite: Duel and Death of Hamlet
02:14:56 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Overture
02:17:56 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Contradance
02:20:27 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Folk Feast
02:23:08 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Interlude
02:25:58 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Waltz "Barrel Organ"
02:27:55 Gadfly, Suite Op. 97a: Galop
02:29:54 Gadfly, Suite Op. 97a: Introduction
02:36:02 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Romance
02:42:31 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Intermezzo
02:48:09 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Nocturne
02:52:06 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Scene
02:55:31 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Finale
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/album/shosta...
For physical sales: http://brilliantclassics.com/articles...
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7tHoHC...
If you like the works of Shostakovich, you can also check the following video “Shostakovich: Symphonies 1-6” :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSLp3...
After releasing the highly successful sets of Shostakovich symphonies (the award-winning cycle of Rudolf Barshai) and the string quartets ( highly acclaimed performances of the Rubio Quartet), this set presents the Jazz Suites, Ballet Suites and Film Music.
Shostakovich lived a live full of tension and controverses in the Stalin era. As a modernist he was reprimanded and threatened to be banned. As a sign of good behaviour, he wrote music for mass audiences, in a popular style. But Shostakovich being Shostakovich, he managed to suggest under the surface of the sometimes nearly vulgar music his unique sense of bitter irony and revolt.
The Jazz suites enjoy a huge popularity. The 'Second Waltz' from the first Suite gained world reputation through the arrangement of Andre Rieu. The film music for the Gadfly is famous for its Romance, which was used in a popular television series.
Excellent, idiomatic performances by the Ukrainian Orchestra under Theodore Kuchar.
00:00:00 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): March
00:03:09 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Dance No. 1
00:06:10 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Dance No. 2
00:09:54 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Little Polka
00:12:33 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Lyric Waltz
00:15:16 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Waltz No. 1
00:18:42 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Waltz No. 2
00:22:20 Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, (Jazz Suite No. 2): Finale
00:24:44 Overture on Russian and Kirghiz Themes, Op. 115
00:34:13 Jazz Suite No. 1: Waltz
00:36:38 Jazz Suite No. 1: Polka
00:38:21 Jazz Suite No. 1: Foxtrot
00:42:16 Novorossijsk Chimes
00:44:57 Festive Overture, Op. 96
00:50:43 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Overture
00:56:22 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Polka
00:59:04 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Variation
01:00:55 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Tango
01:06:05 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Intermezzo
01:10:00 The Bolt, Ballet Suite, Op. 27a: Finale
01:13:30 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Waltz
01:15:57 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Russian Lubok
01:18:31 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Galop
01:20:33 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Adagio
01:27:57 The Limpid Stream, Ballet Suite, Op. 39a: Pizzicato
01:29:28 The Golden Age, Ballet Suite, Op. 22a: Overture
01:33:18 The Golden Age, Ballet Suite, Op. 22a: Adagio
01:42:04 The Golden Age, Ballet Suite, Op. 22a: Polka
01:44:19 The Golden Age, Ballet Suite, Op. 22a: Dance
01:46:29 Hamlet Suite: Prelude
01:48:51 Hamlet Suite: The Ball at the Palace
01:52:36 Hamlet Suite: The Ghost
01:54:02 Hamlet Suite: In the Garden
01:57:11 Hamlet Suite: Hamlet & Ophelia
02:01:07 Hamlet Suite: Arrival of the Actors
02:03:22 Hamlet Suite: Poisoning Scene
02:10:52 Hamlet Suite: Duel and Death of Hamlet
02:14:56 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Overture
02:17:56 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Contradance
02:20:27 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Folk Feast
02:23:08 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Interlude
02:25:58 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Waltz "Barrel Organ"
02:27:55 Gadfly, Suite Op. 97a: Galop
02:29:54 Gadfly, Suite Op. 97a: Introduction
02:36:02 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Romance
02:42:31 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Intermezzo
02:48:09 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Nocturne
02:52:06 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Scene
02:55:31 Gadfly, Suite, Op. 97a: Finale
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· · · · ·
Novaya Gazeta, an opposition newspaper, first reported the pogrom, saying that at least 100 gay men had been arrested and three killed in the roundup. Human Rights Watch corroborated those findings.
The sweep has been widely condemned by Western governments, the United Nations and rights groups. Activists in Russia have set up an underground network to spirit the victims out of Chechnya and to protect them from potentially violent reprisals from their families and others. The victims use assumed names in their everyday dealings.
The following account is based on interviews with Maksim, who is in his 20s, and two other gay men who were detained by Chechen security agents.
Homosexuality is taboo in Chechnya and the mostly Muslim surrounding areas of the Caucasus region in southern Russia. “This society is highly homophobic,” said Ekaterina L. Sokiryanskaya, Russia project director for the International Crisis Group and an authority on Chechnya. “Homosexuality is condemned. It is believed Islam considers it a great sin.”
Nevertheless, before the crackdown, gay men in Chechnya could at least lead social lives, if heavily closeted ones, Maksim said. They met largely in private chat rooms on social networking sites with names like the Village or What the Mountains Are Silent About.
“When two gay men meet, they don’t tell one another their true names,” Maksim said. Men met at cafes or at apartments rented for a night, he said. “Nobody suspected my sexual orientation, not even my best friends.”
The crackdown began after GayRussia, a rights group based in Moscow, applied for permits for gay pride parades in the Caucasus region, prompting counterprotests by religious groups, the men said. In Chechnya, it became something even worse — a mass “prophylactic” cleansing of homosexuals, the security service agents told the gay men as they rounded them up.
The men were held for as little as a day or as long as several weeks, according to Human Rights Watch and to interviews with gay men who later escaped the region. Some “returned to their families barely alive from beatings,” said Tanya Lokshina, Russia program director for Human Rights Watch.
Among the fatalities documented by the organization were one man who succumbed during torture and two others who died in “honor killings” by relatives after the police released them.
“Human Rights Watch has been getting numerous reports about attacks by security services under Ramzan Kadyrov’s control, and those reports are extremely disturbing,” Ms. Lokshina said. “This is another opportunity to reinforce the culture of fear.”
The Chechen authorities’ response to the global outrage over the pogrom has provoked new incredulity. In a telephone interview, Mr. Kadyrov’s spokesman, Alvi Karimov, said the reports of an anti-gay pogrom had to be false because such men did not exist in Chechnya.
“In Grozny, have you ever noticed people who, by their appearance or manners, resemble people who are oriented in the wrong way?” Mr. Karimov asked.
“A policy is developed for a problem,” he said, referring to a report that said the arrests were official policy. “I can officially say there is no policy because there is no problem. If there were a problem, there would be a policy.”
In a televised meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Wednesday, Mr. Kadyrov characterized as “libelous” news reports that the security services in Chechnya had been persecuting gay men.
And on Thursday, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told journalists that the Russian authorities had found no evidence that the Chechen police had arrested gay men.
But it quickly became clear to Maksim and the other men that the Chechen authorities were applying the same tactics used by Russia and by Mr. Kadyrov to suppress an Islamist insurgency in the region over the past decade.
Security service agents took to posing as gay men looking for dates on the Village and in other chat rooms, or persuaded those they had already captured to lure acquaintances, those arrested said in interviews.
Fear spread among gay Chechens. “If they caught him, they will get to me,” said a 20-year-old student who identified himself as Ilya and who was interviewed at a safe location outside Chechnya. Ilya fled days before the police showed up at his home, he learned later.
The authorities briefly detained another young man, who identified himself as Nohcho, after a friend informed on him during an interrogation. “I don’t blame him,” Nohcho said of the friend. “We are not heroes. We’re just gay guys. They starve you. They shock you.”
That, it seems, is essentially what happened to Maksim, who had been corresponding with his gay acquaintance for some time. “One day, he suggested we meet for a drink,” Maksim said. “And because we knew each other a long time, I did not suspect he would be capable of something like this.”
When Maksim entered the apartment where they had agreed to meet, security officers roughed him up. Five other men were already in the apartment, lured by the same ruse, he said. His account of the deception used to detain him was consistent with others documented by Human Rights Watch and with the accounts of the two other gay men interviewed separately for this article.
All six of the men in the apartment were transferred to a makeshift cell in an abandoned building, where they were tortured with electricity one by one, Maksim said.
After 11 days, he was released to a male relative, who was told that Maksim was gay. The security officers told the captives’ male relatives that, if they had any honor, they would kill the young men, Maksim and Ilya said.
Maksim’s father threatened to beat him but refrained when his son showed him the bruises he already had. Instead his father said, “I should kill you.”
Fearing for his life, Maksim turned to a gay rights group, the Russian LGBT Network, based in St. Petersburg, which has established an emergency, round-the-clock volunteer group to help gay men escape the region.
To reassure the victims they are trying to help, the activists have taken extraordinary precautions, operating virtually as a partisan cell behind enemy lines, though they have done nothing illegal under Russian law.
“These people don’t trust anybody,” said Olga Baranova, director of the Moscow Community Center, a support group for gays that is part of the volunteer network helping gay men flee Chechnya.
After arriving at the safe location outside Chechnya, several young men said they had suspected that the volunteer group was also a trap but had no other option but to accept the help, Ms. Baranova said. “They say, ‘We didn’t believe you were real,’” she said. “‘We thought this was the last effort to round up whoever was left.’”
The network bought airplane tickets for Chechen gay men, found safe houses and arranged for doctors to treat those who had been badly beaten.
“Gays in Chechnya and the North Caucasus are in lethal danger,” Igor Kochetkov, director of the Russian LGBT Network, said in a telephone interview. “People whose partners are detained have every reason to believe they will be arrested. It is very hard not to name the names under torture.”
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Ms. Le Pen focused her demands on Friday on the roughly 10,000 people that law enforcement officers have flagged as possible Islamist radicals, saying that those on the so-called S-files who are foreigners should be deported; that those who are dual citizens should be stripped of their French nationality; and that those who are French should be prosecuted.
Legal experts have noted, however, that the threshold for being designated for the S-files is very low compared with the evidence needed to secure a criminal conviction.
The conservative candidate François Fillon said from his campaign headquarters in Paris that France needed to prepare for a long struggle.
“We are in a war that will be long,” he said. “The opponent is powerful; its networks are numerous; its accomplices live among us and beside us.”
Mr. Fillon said that if elected, he would “take the diplomatic initiative” to reach consensus between Washington and Moscow on destroying the Islamic State, which he promised to do “with an iron hand.” He added that “France’s Muslims overwhelmingly want to live their faith in peace,” and appealed for their help in combating fundamentalism.
Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve responded to Ms. Le Pen and Mr. Fillon with a point-by-point rebuttal. “She has pretended to ignore that it was this government that restored border controls,” he said of Ms. Le Pen, noting that more than 2,300 officers had been mobilized every day along France’s frontiers since the attacks in and around Paris on Nov. 13, 2015. He also noted that 117 people had been expelled from France over terrorist activities, and that Ms. Le Pen’s party had voted against laws that strengthened the government’s intelligence-gathering powers.
“For all of our citizens, for our entire country, this attack is a tragedy,” he said. “Ms. Le Pen seeks to make it an opportunity.”
He said it was hard to believe Mr. Fillon’s promise of 10,000 new police jobs, saying that Mr. Fillon, when he was prime minister from 2007 to 2012, had overseen spending reductions that resulted in the loss of 54,000 military jobs and 13,000 internal security jobs. During that period, France, like many countries, was tightening its belt in response to the financial crisis.
The presidential election will be held in two stages.
Round 1
Voters will choose from 11 candidates on April 23.Round 2
If, as is widely expected, no one receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff on May 7.Read more
Why does this vote matter? We offer a guide to the French vote.
The centrist independent candidate Emmanuel Macron urged France not to succumb to the fear that extremists seek to spread.
“They want France to be afraid; they want to disrupt the democratic process; they want the French to yield to unreasonableness and division,” he said. “Our challenge is to protect the French, not to give up who we are, to stay unified and build a future.”
The gunman who killed the officer on Thursday evening on the Champs-Élysées had been detained in February for threatening the police, but he was released because there was not enough evidence to charge him, according to French news agencies and a law enforcement official.
The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility within hours of the attack, which also wounded two police officers and a bystander and briefly shut down the city’s most famous boulevard. The gunman was shot dead by the police as he tried to flee.
Several news outlets identified the gunman as Karim Cheurfi, who was born in 1967 and lived in Chelles, an eastern suburb of Paris. In an interview on Friday, a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing confirmed that Mr. Cheurfi was the gunman, and that he had been convicted around 2003 of attempted murder, after he shot two police officers.
Mr. Cheurfi was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but the sentence was reduced to 15 years and he served less than that, the official said.
On Friday, the office of the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said that the authorities searching the gunman’s car had found a pump-action shotgun, two large kitchen knives, a pair of pruning shears and a Quran.
Three people linked to the suspect have been taken into custody for questioning.
The prosecutor’s office also said that the assailant’s car had contained a piece of paper with the addresses of the French domestic intelligence agency and of a police station in Lagny-sur-Marne, a town about 13 miles east of Paris.
Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told Europe 1 Radio on Friday that the police officers who killed the gunman had averted a “blood bath, a carnage on the Champs-Élysées.”
“This was an individual who was known by the judiciary, who was known to police services, who was a dangerous individual,” he said.
Asked about news reports that the assailant had been briefly arrested in February after he expressed his intention to kill police officers, but that he had been released for lack of evidence, Mr. Brandet declined to comment.
On Thursday, Belgian authorities issued a warrant for what they believed was a dangerous man who intended to travel to France. Some news reports suggested Thursday evening that the man might be connected to the shooting on the Champs-Élysées, but Mr. Brandet said the man turned himself in at a police station in Antwerp, Belgium, on Friday morning and did not appear to be related to the Paris case.
Mr. Molins was expected to hold a news conference later on Friday.
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Page 4
By Warren Fiske
Special to the Richmond Free Press
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia is in a high-profile position this spring as the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The committee began hearings in January and, after a short break, plans to resume them after the Senate’s spring recess ends Saturday.
Although most of the hearings have been behind closed doors, the panel has publicly interviewed six national security experts and academics and is expected to interview several key current and former aides to President Trump.
The Richmond Free Press posed questions to Sen. Warner about the importance of the probe, its progress and whether the national attention he is drawing might encourage him to make a White House bid of his own in 2020.
Here are Sen. Warner’s answers:
Q: You’ve called the Russian investigation “the most important thing I’ve ever done.” Why do you feel that way?
A: This investigation is ultimately about preserving the integrity of American democracy. We now hold indisputable evidence that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election. Both political parties were hacked by Russian agents and information was released with the intent to influence American voters. The Senate Intelligence Committee is working, in a bipartisan way, to provide the American people with the truth.
Q: What conclusions have you drawn so far about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election? What has surprised you the most? Disappointed you the most?
A: Information was selectively leaked — in effect, weaponized — to the detriment of one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and the benefit of one candidate, Donald Trump.
Russia set out to undermine the trust in American media by effectively paying close to 1,000 internet trolls to manufacture fake news and create an environment of suspicion and disinformation. Russia interfered in the American democratic process. And they are currently attempting to do the same thing in both the French and German elections.
Q: Are you convinced President Trump and/or members of his campaign knew about Russia’s efforts?
A: We can acknowledge that there is certainly a web of connections between Trump aides and Russia. What I am interested in is discovering the implications of those connections. We have to find out the truth so that we can either remove the cloud currently hanging over this administration or provide the American public with conclusive evidence of complicity.
Q: Is there evidence that President Trump’s campaign coordinated events with Russia?
A: There are a series of people very closely affiliated with the Trump campaign who have extensive ties with Russia. This investigation aims to discover whether or not there was any active coordination.
Q: What is the goal of the Intelligence Committee’s investigation and when do you think it will be complete?
A: The goal of this investigation is to discover, in a bipartisan fashion, the extent of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election and provide solutions that will protect our democratic process from foreign influence in the future.
Q: When you talk to voters around the state, are Russia’s actions on the top of their minds? How does this affect people? Why should people care about this?
A: The fact that the Russian government paid internet trolls to manufacture fake news should be a concern for everyone. In this climate of disinformation, it is extremely important for Americans to practice good “cyberhygiene.” What I mean by that is people need to be aware of both the benefits and the harms of social media.
Q: There is lots of speculation that your key role in the investigation could put you into contention for the White House in 2020. Are you eyeing a presidential run?
A: Right now, my attention is focused on this investigation. I think a lot of politicians make the mistake of looking too far ahead. I have a job to do, here and now, and I intend to do it well.
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By Tristan Lejeune - 04/21/17 06:47 AM EDT
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