Very latest. Welcome to this special coverage of a major Anti Terrorist operation which is taking place in paris, after gunmen opened fire on a police van in the heart of the french capital, killing one officer and wounding two others. The incident took place in one of the citys most Famous Boulevard is, the Champs Elysees, which leads from the arctic tree on the to the Place De La Concorde. The gunmen got out of a carand la concorde. The gunmen got out of a car and began firing an automatic weapon before being shot dead by police. Media reports say he was known to the Intelligence Services and Police Search was under way at his home in paris the Islamic State group said it carried out the shooting, naming the attacker as a belgian. The incident comes days before the first round of the french president ial election. We will be live in paris in a moment. First europe editor reports from paris. Mesdames et monsieurs, you have to stay back, please. The area is dangerous because of shotguns. Please stay back. Tonight, frances worst fears realised. Yet another terror attack, and just two days before an all important president ial election here. One policeman killed, another seriously injured, in a shooting on the emblematic and busy Champs Elysees. Translation i was walking on the pavement. There was a bus full of police. The man parked just in front of the bus, then got out a kalashnikov, and then he shot six times. I thought it was fireworks, then he went and hid behind a lorry. Translation we were moving towards a car, and then i heard two or three shots. I didnt realise they were shots to start with. Well, then there was just panic all around. Everyone started running down the Champs Elysees, just by instinct. I didnt stop to work out what was going on. I just ran, too. The attacker was then shot dead by police. Guns drawn, the police are shooing people off the street. This country, which up untiljust now was obsessed by politics and the upcoming election, has been thrown back into a sense of fear. It was just about recovering from, after the mass paris attacks over a year ago. Tonight, people in central paris were too scared to leave their homes. The tension is palpable. Banging. Shots are being fired. Is it gunshots . No. A sudden noise where we were was mistaken for gunfire, and had police shouting us off the street. Metro stations in central paris have been shut down for now as armed police spread across the streets of the capital. Tonight, paris is fearful, and on high alert. Katya adler, bbc news, paris. Frances president has been speaking out about the attack. He confirmed that as well as one Police Officer and the attacker being killed, and two Police Officers wounded, one passerby was also injured. Here is a little of what he had to say. Translation we are convinced that the investigations will show that this attack was terrorist in nature. The Anti Terrorist group has been deployed, and it will lead the inquiry. It will establish the motivation of the attack, and whether anyone else was involved. I am convening a defence meeting tomorrow morning at 8 00am. We have done everything to mobilise our police and military, in a way appropriate to the circumstances. This has been the case for several months. Our vigilance will be of the highest order, in particular with regard to the forthcoming election. But everyone will understand that, at this time, my thoughts are with the family of the Police Officer who was killed, and also the loved ones of the wounded officers. A National Commemoration will be arranged for this Police Officer, who was the victim of a cowardly murder. We must all remain aware that our Security Forces carry out a particularly difficultjob, that they are exposed, as we have seen again this evening, and that they can count on the total support of our nation. Our correspondent was in a cafe, and explained what he saw. I was sitting in a cafe in front of the famous george v hotel, on george v avenue, so i got to 300 to a00m from where the shootings happened. I was inside, and i heard very strong noises. At the beginning i thought it was sort of High Construction noises, or things like that. But i left the cafe three minutes later, in order to head to the Champs Elysees, then i started to see many people quite scared and running in the opposite way of mayan. So i started to ask what was happening, and a lot of frightened people told me it is shooting everywhere. You definitely have to get out of here. So i started to run on the opposite side, and we could see very quickly plenty of police cars, even helicopters, one or two helicopters over the sector, with some cameras on the helicopters. So i guess they were still tracking. But the reaction of the police was really fast. Yes, that is something that we are certainly gearing, that the police were there very, very quickly, and that is something that you can confirm . Yes, i can confirm that the police did a really great job in this period of high security and high risk. The policemen did theirjob. Their reaction was very, very fast, and they secured the sector, and they blocked the traffic in less than. I would save maximum 15 minutes, the Champs Elysees and the Surrounding Streets Were Com Pletely the surrounding streets were completely blocked to all traffic. And what advice now are you receiving from the police . What are they telling you . So i am now a bit more fine now then when i used to be. Iami more fine now then when i used to be. I am i would say a kilometre or a bit less from the Champs Elysees. Iamata a bit less from the Champs Elysees. I am at a friends place now, because i was heading home and the sector a few hours later was blocked, in order to go outside, a very big detour to do. But the advice is to avoid totally the sector of the Champs Elysees. They are still, i guess, completely closed, until now, as now you have a lot of the Scientific Police and all sorts of. All types of police going to investigate. So it is totally forbidden to enter the Champs Elysees area. Totally forbidden to enter the champselysees area. And the Champs Elysees is such a famous place. It is known all over the world. Just give us a little bit of a flavour of what it is like of an evening. How busy it is, how People Promenade and, i guess . Definitely. We are in spring, the good weather is coming back, it is thursday night now. So normally the champs elysee is a very busy district. For tourists and parisian people, you have many bars, many nightclubs, and many cafes open late, you can even do some late shopping. So its a big melting pot between the tourists and local people. Normally the champs elysee, thats a normal thursday afternoon and thursday night at the champs elysee, whereas now, certainly, everything is closed, or almost. Ina in a brief statement, the paris prosecutor said that the gunman had been identified. Translation the identity of the attacker is known, and it has been verified. I wont reveal it, as investigations and searches are already taking place to determine whether or not he had any accomplices. That brief statement, but we wont get that name until they know whether that gunman had any accomplices. A little earlier on my colleague spoke to the uk ambassador to france between 2012 and 2016. She began by asking for his reaction to these events in paris. Well, this does have all the hallmarks of another terrorist attack, doesnt it . It is a deliberate, targeted attack on police, on one of the highest Profile Streets in france, with thousands of tourists than people around, as it would be on any evening. So this clearly was intended to attract the maximum attention. It is a very sensitive time in france, just before the election. How significant, then, is the location . Well, its highly symbolic. You cannot think of a more symbolic french target, i suppose, than the Champs Elysees. So this is calculated to have maximum impact, and it has had one. Some of the eyewitnesses have said that they felt that the police were very much the target here, when there were, of course, probably many other people out on the street, and as far as we are aware, they were unharmed. So the police were a very significant target here . Yes, initial reports said they pulled up next to the police van, and shot at the policemen. Of course, there are many police on the Champs Elysees at any time. So yes, there are a lot of inquiries to be done now, but it looks like a targeted attack on the police force in france. You were clearly the ambassador in paris during some very tumultuous times. There has already been a State Of Emergency in place for quite some time. What more can french authorities do, in terms of providing more security . I dont think theres much more. There are thousands on the street before the elections on sunday. I mean, the experience in paris from the bataclan attacks was that they were determined not to let the tourists change their intentions. Soi so i think the reaction will be not to be cowed by this attack. There was already one plot disrupted in marseilles a couple of days ago, so this does show that france is clearly at a very high level of threat at the moment. One of the candidates, francois fillon, according to reuters, has been calling for the Election Campaign to be suspended. How likely is that, given what you said about france wanting to show that normal life can carry on . Well, i think hes talked about suspending his campaign. There is only really one more day of campaigning anyway in this Election Campaign, because saturday is the day when no campaigning is allowed, just before the election. So it is almost over anyway. I think it is hard to see that they will postpone the actual voting on sunday. I think the logic would be that france should carry on, and show that they are not going to be frightened away from this hugely important democratic exercise that they are now on the point of conducting. In terms of the timing of this, how coincidental is it that this president ial debate was taking place this evening . I dont think we know the answer to that, but it surely is no coincidence that this attack has happened just a couple of days before the first round of the french president ial elections, the major event in the five year cycle. It feels to me like the timing was deliberate, in that sense. Lets cross live to paris for the latest, and tomas, you have been monitoring these developments. Lets start with the person that performed this attack. The paris prosecutor said that they know his identity. They are not releasing his namejust yet. Notjust yet, because they are still searching for the home of that man and potentially of other accomplices. So they are not releasing that name for now. What we know is he has been identified. He was known to the security services. There were also Media Reports that he was actually. He posted his plan to attack Police Officers earlier on on the messaging app called telegram and that the attack was claimed by the so called Islamic State, who said that he was a soldier of the Islamic State that carried this out, and they presented him asa carried this out, and they presented him as a belgian national. Socalled Islamic State quick off the mark to claim this, much quicker than in previous incidents of this type. Yes, exactly. They claimed the attack through their agency, amaq, but that has not been confirmed by the authorities yet. I assume that Police Investigators are working on all of the clues they can get to try and verify that claim, to try and get any other plans who might be under way tonight, and they are trying to make sure that no other accomplices are out there in paris planning further attacks. And once again we see a fear of authority, in this case a Police Officer, being the target. This car pulling up in front of the police van. We saw a soldier being attacked at the louvre, we saw a soldier attacked at the airport, these are targeted attacks at people in uniform. Yes, thatis attacks at people in uniform. Yes, that is interesting. When you think about it, the champs elysee, you have Hundreds Of Thousands of people there. You could have easily targeted crowds of people, just opened fire into the crowds but that man drove his car, got out of the carand man drove his car, got out of the car and decided to target Police Officers. So it was definitely an attack that was planned to harm the police and the Security Forces there, also reacted very swiftly and avoided the bloodbath on the champs elysee. And, tomas, this attack coming just days before the first round of the president ial election. We have seen condolences from the president ial candidates paid and quite a different Reaction Force on, france win le Pen Cancelling and others saying the show must go on. Yes, Marine Le Pen and fillon cancelling their campaign but the centrists, macron, who is ahead in the polls, and the socialist candidate, benoit hamon, said they would carry on with their plans, that the attack shouldnt be a matter of cancelling the rest of the campaign. But remember that a campaign. But remember that a campaign is supposed to finish, to end, on friday midnight, and that there will be no more politics, if you will, in france on tv, on radio, on all the media on saturday before the vote. All right, well, tomas, thank you very much. Weve just been hearing about the fact that, yes, this has taken placejust hearing about the fact that, yes, this has taken place just days before that first round of the president ial election that is taking place in paris, and we saw that the not the debate, not a tv debate, more a tv programme, where the election candidates were taking interviews, they were interrupted, that whole programme was interrupted while more details emerged about what took place on the champs elysee. Well, for more details. Earlier i spoke to maz redpath who is from london but was close to the place De La Concord when events unfolded. Ididnt hear i didnt hear the shots at all. I was at the Place De La Concorde. I had a phone call from a friend of mine who was checking i was ok. Within minutes of the phone call, around 9 a5pm approximately, about 30 speeding police cars drove past. And so i headed in the direction of all the police cars and i got to where we were cordoned off, couldnt go any further, and there was probably about 15 people, this was as close as one could get if youre not actually where the firing took place. And the whole of the champs elysee or shutdown, all you could just see was blue lights flashing. How quickly did it become obvious to you what had happened . Well, i mean, oddly enough i didnt realise. I saw these police cars going past, then people started to look around and it became a bit odd. But i think, you know, by the time 20 or 30 police ca is know, by the time 20 or 30 police cars zoomed past the Place De La Concorde it became clear this was something quite serious. And there was a helicopter ahead circling the champs elysee. And by the time i got to the Place De La Concorde everything was shut down. The stretch between Place De La Concorde and the grands palais or shutdown to pedestrians. And by that time you could see that it was just one big blur of blue lights which is quite an emotional moment to see. That was as far as we could go, basically. Yes, the speed of the response of the police and other Emergency Services seems to have really been something that caught everybodys attention. Without a doubt, it was exceptional. I mean, you really felt it was highly structured. People knew what they were doing. Very professional. They were always aggressive. You just felt like they we re aggressive. You just felt like they were in control. It was very nice. The advice, though, very quickly, the advice to people on the champs elysee for certain was to get away from public areas, to get out of the open. What advice did you receive . Asi open. What advice did you receive . As i said, iam open. What advice did you receive . As i said, i am not sure you few are familiar with the area, i was at the height of the grand palais, you can look up, and it was quite clear that nothing was being taken for granted. And so, you know, people were loitering around, people were saying, look, for your own safety. My saying, look, for your own safety. My impression was people were not 100 sure if possibly more was going to happen or not. It was uncertain at that moment. Obviously those pictures were no longer live, but he was speaking to my colleague Martine Croxall earlier on, that event that took place just before 9pm local time. So, on the champs elysee at around 102 on the champs elysee, 300 metres east of the arc de triomphe. Ididnt hear i didnt hear the attack because i am about 200 yards from where it happened. What i did hear, what drove me to look what was going on was i heard helicopters circling above my head. It is illegal to fly over paris normally. And then you could see in the street you had police cars making lots of noise. Passers by, to tell the truth, didnt know about this, because they we re didnt know about this, because they were walking perfectly calmly. But, you know, two minutes walk and the entire avenue was blocked off by police et cetera. You have to realise that the french have always known that the champs elysee is the most emblematic avenue in the country, so it is always policed very well. You always have patrols. When the State Of Emergency got into effect, you also had army patrols. And it is a place where you have on a weekend, three quarters of a million shoppers and visitors and people who come to the cinema and restau ra nts. People who come to the cinema and restaurants. It started in the early evening tonight, it is a nice, mild night in paris and they must have been at least 100,000 people. We have an Electoral Campaign for the president ial campaign for the past, well, it feels like several years, but it was actually two months. And terrorism was strangely absent from it, even though there had been a threat that had been foiled by the Police Last Week in marseilles and even though there had been some attacks such as the killing of a jewish woman in Council Housing in france, which is also something that was worrisome, also by a radical islamist. But this was away from most of the campaign and now it has sort of barged back on the 12 last day of campaigning, especially tonight when the candidates were speaking on television. Anne elizabeth moutet, french political journalist speaking to us who lives not very far from where that incident took place. Now, live to the champs elysee, where this attack took place just before 9pm local time, where a gunman opened fire on a police van, driving up to the police van, opening fire, killing one officer and seriously wounding two others. The attacker attempted to then flee the scene but was actually shot dead by police. Right now there is a major Anti Kerawa Brett and under way in paris. Anti terror operation under way in paris. Officials say that the government was known to the Police Services and an operation is going away at the attackers home near the capital. A little earlier, via the amaq newsagency, the Islamic State group said they carried out this shooting and its name to the attacker as a belgium, they called him abu yusuf, but that has not been confirmed by the french authorities. They say they know the identity of the attacker but they are not going to be exposing his identity until they know whether he has had accomplices. If you think we are done with winter weather, think again. It will turn colder next week. Frost and even some wintry showers around. Until then, fairly quiet. Not too quiet in Northern Scotland as friday begins, because there will be some rain and windy weather around. From the thickest cloud in wales, north west england, Northern Ireland and south west scotland, it is down and south west scotland, it is down and drizzly in places, especially on the coast and hills, more persistent rain across Northern Scotland. Clearing away from the northern isles, so we have a cold and showery ms, quite windy, the showers might have a wintry flavour. Through the day we take up rate of rent in Northern Ireland. Plenty of cloud in Northern England and wales, the odd spot of rain or drizzle keeping sunny spells east of the pennines, east midlands, east anglia, southern england, often cloudy but bright or sunny spells and warmth in the sunshine when it appears. 18 or even 19 degrees. On through friday evening a lot of dry weather to come going into saturday morning. This zone of thick cloud, patchy rain or drizzle moving south. To the north, cold to start a saturday for Northern England, especially scotland, with a pot of frost. Through the weekend, no significant change. That is confined to next week. For the weekend, change. That is confined to next week. Forthe weekend, it change. That is confined to next week. For the weekend, it will be mainly dry, a lot of cloud around but some bright or sunny spells. Close to this weather front, down or drizzly weather edging southwards on saturday. North of that, sunny spells, showers into Northern Scotland. South of that, temperatures up, so warm if the sun appears, but it will be a cooler feel for many parts of the uk, especially where you have the breeze. As ever, if the sun appears it will feel pleasant. Similarly so on sunday with dry weather in england and wales. Northern ireland until late in the day. Parts of scotland, especially further north, turning windy and wet as the day goes on. Looking fairly promising for the london marat on with warmth of the day goes on. If it is overcast, it is pretty much ideal for the runners. Going from sunday to monday, particularly by the time we get to tuesday, the weather change i was talking about, Cold Air Moving South across the uk with strong wind and some of those showers will be turning wintry. Welcome to bbc news. Lets bring you up welcome to bbc news. Lets bring you up to date with our main story. A major anti terror operation is underway in paris, after a gunman opened fire on a police van, killing one officer and seriously wounding two others. The attacker, who targeted the busy Champs Elysees, in the heart of the city, attempted to flee the scene but was shot dead by police. Officials have confirmed he was known to the Intelligence Services, and a Police Search is underway at his home near the capital. The Islamic State group says it carried out the shooting, naming the attacker as a belgian, abu yousif. French president Francois Hollande has held crisis talks with his Prime Minister and interior minister, and is set to convene his Security Cabinet on friday morning. The incident comesjust days ahead of the first round of the french president ial election. And our main uk headline