A timeline of terror in France

Shooting of a police officer Paris's Champs Elysees is the latest in a string of atrocities in France since 2015

PARIS: Thursday's attack on the Champs Elysees in Paris saw a gunman kill a policeman and wound two others in bloodshed claimed by the Islamic State group just days before an election.

Observers had long feared bloodshed ahead of Sunday's vote and the violence is likely to thrust security to the front of voters' minds. Here is a recap of major attacks and foiled attempts since the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris in January 2015.

January 7-9, 2015

Two men armed with Kalashnikov rifles storm the Paris offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo killing 12 people. A policewoman is killed just outside Paris the following day, while a gunman takes hostages at a Jewish supermarket, four of whom are killed. The attackers are killed in separate shootouts with police, but not before claiming allegiance to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS).

Two men armed with Kalashnikov rifles storm the Paris offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo killing 12 people in January, 2015. PHOTO: AFP

February 3, 2015

A knife-wielding man attacks three soldiers guarding a Jewish community centre in Nice on the French Riviera. The 30-year-old assailant, Moussa Coulibaly, is arrested. In custody, he expresses his hatred for France, the police, the military and Jews.

April 19, 2015

Sid Ahmed Ghlam, an Algerian IT student, is arrested on suspicion of killing a woman who was found shot dead in her car, and of planning an attack on a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif. Prosecutors say they found documents about Al-Qaeda and IS at his home, and that he had been in touch with a suspected militant in Syria about an attack on a church.



June 26, 2015

Frenchman Yassin Salhi, 35, kills and beheads his boss Herve Cornara and displays the severed head on the fence of a gas plant in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier in southeastern France. He tries to blow up the factory, but is arrested. He commits suicide in his jail cell in December.

July 13, 2015

Four men aged 16 to 23, including a former soldier, are arrested on charges of planning an attack on a military camp to behead an officer. They proclaim allegiance to IS.

August 21, 2015

Passengers prevent a bloodbath on a high-speed Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris, tackling a man who opened fire on travellers. He was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an automatic pistol and a box-cutter. The gunman is identified as 25-year-old Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani, known to intelligence services.

November 13, 2015

IS militants armed with assault rifles and explosives strike outside a France-Germany football match at the national stadium, Paris cafes, and the Bataclan concert hall in a coordinated assault that leaves 130 people dead and more than 350 wounded, the deadliest attack of its kind in French history.

Police man a position close to the Bataclan theatre on November 13, 2015 after a series of gun attacks across Paris. PHOTO: AFP

January 7, 2016

A man wielding a meat cleaver and carrying an IS emblem is shot dead as he tries to attack a police station in Paris. Convicted of theft in 2013, the man identified himself at the time as Moroccan-born Sallah Ali.

June 13, 2016

Larossi Abballa, 25, kills police officer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, 42, and his partner, Jessica Schneider, 36, at their home in Magnanville, west of Paris. Salvaing is stabbed to death, while Schneider's throat is slit in front of their young son. Abballa is killed by a police SWAT team, but has already claimed the murders on social media in the name of the Islamic State group.

July 14, 2016

A truck ploughs through a crowd on Nice's Promenade des Anglais after a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people and injuring over 330. The driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, is shot dead by security forces. IS claims responsibility.

Police stand near a truck that ploughed into a crowd leaving a fireworks display in the French Riviera town of Nice on July 14, 2016. PHOTO: AFP

July 26, 2016

Attackers slit the throat of a priest in a hostage-taking at his church in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

February 3, 2017

A man armed with a machete in each hand attacks four soldiers on patrol at Paris's Louvre Museum, shouting "Allah Akbar". The attacker, a 29-year-old Egyptian, was seriously injured.

March 18, 2017

A 39-year-old man is killed at Paris's Orly airport after attacking a soldier. The attacker shouted: "I am ready to die for Allah," according to the Paris prosecutor, Francois Molins.

April 19, 2017

Police arrest two Frenchmen in their 20s in Marseille on suspicion of planning an attack, with bomb-making materials and guns found in searches.

April 21, 2017

A known terror suspect shoots dead a policeman and wounds two others on the Champs Elysees, before being killed in return fire, in an assault claimed by the Islamic State group.