FRANCE-SECURITY – REUTERS Agency
PARIS, Oct 14 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron ordered the mobilization of up to 7,000 soldiers to increase security patrols, his office said on Saturday, a day after a teacher was stabbed to death in an Islamist attack.
France was placed on its highest security alert on Friday after a 20-year-old man fatally stabbed a teacher and seriously injured two other people at a school in the northern city of Arras.
Macron’s office said soldiers would be mobilized on Monday night until further notice as part of an ongoing operation that regularly carries out patrols in major urban centers and tourist spots.
The Louvre museum, one of the French capital’s main tourist attractions, was evacuated and closed after receiving a bomb alert, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Camille Chaize said, adding that checks were being made to establish that there was no danger.
The security alert comes as France hosts the Rugby World Cup and less than a year before Paris hosts the Olympics, which include plans for an unprecedented opening ceremony outside a stadium and a parade. along the Seine River.
Chaize said security measures were already at their highest level in stadiums used for rugby matches, but additional patrols would be added in a nearby fan zone and in central Paris.
France has been the target of several Islamist attacks in recent years, the worst of which was a simultaneous assault by gunmen and suicide bombers on entertainment venues and cafes in Paris in November 2015.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Friday that the Arras attack had a link to events in the Middle East, where Israel is carrying out a military offensive to root out Hamas fighters.
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas and Michel Rose; edited in Spanish by Carlos Serrano)
Source: Ambito
