President Francois Hollande said Monday France would step up the battle against the ISIS group in Syria in the wake of Paris attacks he dubbed “acts of war”.
President Francois Hollande said Monday France would step up the battle against the ISIS group in Syria in the wake of Paris attacks he dubbed “acts of war”.
Mr Hollande told an exceptional meeting of bo-th houses of Parliament he would meet US President Barack Obama and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in the coming days and called for a UN Security Council meeting over the fight against ISIS jihadists. A grave Mr Hollande said the attacks in the French capital that killed 129 people as they enjoyed a Friday night out in bars, restaurants, a concert hall and the national stadium, “were acts of war”.
They “were decided and planned in Syria, prepared and organised in Belgium and perpetrated on our soil with French complicity”, he said. In response, France would “intensify” operations in Syria, Hollande said a day after French jets pounded ISIS targets in the group’s Syrian stronghold of Raqa, its first military response to the Paris carnage.
“We will continue the strikes in the weeks to come,” Mr Hollande told lawmakers. In the fight against the extremists, Mr Hollande said he wanted increased international assistance. “I will meet in the coming days with US President Obama and President Putin,” he said. Turning to measures within France, he said he would ask Parliament to consider extending a state of emergency by three months.
“I decided to ask Parli-ament starting Wednesday to examine a bill prolonging the state of emergency for three months,” he said.
He also called for the French Constitution to be amended to “allow the authorities to act... Against war-level terrorism”.
His long and solemn speech culminated in a rendition by lawmakers of the Marseillaise, the French national anthem.
Meanwhile, European populist and far-right leaders Monday seized on the jihadist attacks in Paris to demand the continent stem the record migrant influx, charging that terrorists could hide among the masses. France’s anti-immigration National Front leader Marine Le Pen called for an “immediate halt” to new migrants.
