France deploys 4,000 more troops amid security fears in run up to Olympics
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal says security measures will be stepped up with 4,000 extra soldiers deployed nationwide in the coming days. The country's terror threat was raised to its highest level on Sunday following a deadly attack in Moscow that was claimed by the Islamic State.
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Four months ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, French authorities have raised the maximum alert level for terrorist threat.
President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that the Islamic State entity believed to be behind the Moscow attack – known as Khorasan, which is a branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan – had also sought to attack France.
At least 137 people were killed when gunmen stormed Moscow's Crocus City Hall on Friday evening before setting the building on fire.
The assault echoed an attack on the Bataclan music venue in Paris in November 2015 which left 90 people dead and was also claimed by the Islamic State group.
"This particular group made several attempts (at attacks) on our own soil," Macron told reporters during his trip to French Guiana.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal echoed this sentiment by saying that "the Islamist terrorist threat is real, it is strong" and "it has never weakened".
He said that 4,000 extra soldiers would be deployed nationwide in the days to come.
"Our fight against terrorism is not just about words. It is very concrete and our hand will never tremble in the face of terrorism, never in the face of Islamism," Attal insisted.
Olympics a future target
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that the Paris Olympics, which begin on 26 July, were an obvious future target.
"France, because we defend universal values, and are for secularism... is particularly threatened, notably during extraordinary events such as the Olympics," he told reporters.
"The French police, gendarmes, prefects, intelligence services, will be ready," he added, saying that "we have a very effective intelligence system. We stop plots developing almost every month."
The heads of intelligence services would hold a meeting on Thursday "to discuss all the conclusions of the attack on Moscow," he added.
French security forces are screening up to a million people before the Games, including athletes and people living close to key infrastructure, according to the interior ministry.
France was last placed on its highest terror alert in October after a suspected Islamist burst into a school in the north of the country and stabbed a teacher to death. The alert was then downgraded in January.
Cyberattacks increasing
The highest alert of the so-called "Vigipirate" system means that security forces will maintain a more visible presence on French streets and be posted in front of possible targets such as a government buildings, transport infrastructure or schools.
Attal said that 45 terror plots had been thwarted in France since 2017, two of them already this year.
The two incidents this year involved a 22-year-old who was suspected of planning an attack on either a nightclub, or the LGBT or Jewish community, and a 62-year-old suspected jihadist with the intention of targeting the Catholic church, prosecutors said in a statement.
In a further development, Ministry of Education said on Monday that 130 high schools and colleges around the country have been targeted since last week by threats of attack and "malicious acts" via digital workspaces.
Students and staff had received messages threatening a bomb attack, accompanied by a video of beheadings.
The government counted 800 false bomb threats in mid-November during a previous series of alerts.
(with AFP)
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