Jane Onyanga-Omara

USA TODAY

French police investigating the terror attack in Paris found a note praising the Islamic State that reportedly fell from the pocket of attacker Karim Cheurfi, Prosecutor Francois Molins said Friday.

Cheurfi, a French national and father of two, also had addresses of police stations written on bits of paper in his car, Molins said, according to the Associated Press.

The gunman who killed a police officer and wounded two others and a female German tourist on the Champs-Elysees on Thursday had been arrested in February on suspicion of plotting to kill police officers, according to French media.

The suspect, 39, was detained and later freed because of a lack of evidence, Radio France International said. In 2003, the man was convicted of attempted homicide in the shootings of two police officers, the AP reported.

The attacker opened fire on a police van in the famous Paris boulevard Thursday before he was shot and killed. The Islamic State identified him by the pseudonym Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki (father of Yusuf the Belgian) through its Amaq news agency.

The policeman killed Thursday was identified as Xavier Jugele by Flag!, a French association of LGBT police officers. Its president, Mickael Bucheron, told the AP the slain officer would have celebrated his 38th birthday in May.

Jugele was one of the officers who raced to the Bataclan concert hall in Paris the night three armed men in suicide bombs stormed a show and killed 90 people on Nov. 13, 2015.

The attack came days before the first round of voting in the French presidential election on Sunday.

President Trump tweeted Friday: "Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!"

"Nothing must hamper this democratic moment, essential for our country,” Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Friday. “Barbarity and cowardice struck Paris last night." He urged people “not to succumb to fear.”

Police searched a home in Chelles, a neighborhood in eastern Paris, following the attack. A police document obtained by the AP said the property was the family home of Cheurfi.

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