The Attack in France Islamic State claims responsibility three days before an election.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-attack-in-france-1492730377
Three days ahead of the first round of France’s presidential election, terrorism has intervened. A gunman with an automatic rifle jumped from a car on the Champs-Élysée Thursday evening and poured bullets into a police car, killing one officer. Islamic State has claimed responsibility.
This event puts extraordinary pressure on a French electorate already trying to sort through difficult decisions about its vote on Sunday.
Conventional political wisdom would hold that the assault will benefit far-right candidate Marine Le Pen because last-minute events of this magnitude can influence voter sentiment, and Ms. Le Pen is running hard on the idea that France is under assault from Arab immigrants. In recent debates she has proposed that France suspend all legal immigration into the country.
The shooting may well tip sentiment in Ms. Le Pen’s direction, but at least two of her three opponents—conservative François Fillon and center-left Emmanuel Macron —have run on strong antiterror platforms. They have also run hard on the widespread sense of economic torpor among the French people. As we saw in the U.K.’s Brexit vote and the U.S. election last year, the sense of dimming economic opportunity is a potent political force. Polls indicate that is French voters’ number one concern.
Whatever the immediate effect of Thursday’s shooting in the heart of Paris, there is no avoiding the blunt reality at the heart of France’s momentous election, which is the general sense among the population that the nation’s elites—in politics and the French media—have become disconnected from the realities of the nation’s problems. It will be a pity if one shooting tips Sunday’s results, but it would not be a surprise.
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