Tag Archives: Paris

France’s government faces nationwide protests over labor reform

By Brian Love

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s government faced nationwide protests and a no confidence vote in parliament on Thursday after opting to bypass widespread opposition and impose labor reforms that will make hiring and firing easier.

As crowds gathered in cities across France for another day of demonstrations, the CGT labor union called for weekly rolling strikes at the SNCF state rail company from Tuesday night until Friday morning.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ Socialist administration was expected to survive the confidence vote.

But a series of strikes and waves of street protests that have shown no sign of easing since they began in late March suggest popular discontent over a reform that pollsters say three out of four people oppose is becoming more entrenched.

“It’s time to move up a gear,” Philippe Martinez, head of the CGT union, said. The main objection to the reform from unions is that it would allow firms to adopt in-house terms on pay and conditions instead of complying with national standards.

The official reason for the rail strike call is a standoff with management over conditions, but its timetable dovetails with the broader protests against government policy.

As crowds gathered in cities across France, government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said there was no question of withdrawing the reform.

But it has left an already deeply unpopular President Francois Hollande, who narrowly survived a rebellion by dissenters in his own party on Wednesday, in an uncomfortable position a year from elections.

The reform is also under fire from a rolling youth protest movement known as Nuit Debout, or ‘Night Uprising’.

Since the protests began, several hundred police have been injured in clashes, often with hooded youths hurling stones and petrol bombs. On Thursday, news television channels showed footage of secondary-school pupils blocking schools entrances with garbage bins.

The interior ministry advised motorists to stay away from central Paris ahead of an afternoon march and also reported traffic halted by road blockages in some places.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a prominent Socialist, added her voice to the dissenters, declaring on Europe 1 radio: “This law does just nothing for social justice.”

Hollande has several other problems piling up.

Media speculation is rife that his youthful economy minister Emmanuel Macron could run for president in the election scheduled for May 2017.

His government has also been caught up in a controversy over sexual harassment in the corridors of power.

After the resignation a politician accused of harassing female colleagues, Finance Minister Michel Sapin, a close Hollande ally, on Wednesday admitted behaving inappropriately toward a female journalist.

(Reporting By Brian Love; Editing by Andrew Callus and John Stonestreet)

French Police clash with more protesters over labor laws

Masked youths face off with French police during a demonstration against the French labour law proposal in Paris

By Brian Love

PARIS (Reuters) – French police clashed with protesters outside a school building in Paris on Wednesday in fresh unrest involving police amid anger over government plans to reform highly-protective labor laws.

Police used teargas to disperse a crowd that tried to stop them removing nearly 300 immigrants who had moved into an empty secondary school that was due to reopen after renovation, Paris police chief Michel Cadot said.

“The state is obliged to apply the law,” Cadot said. The migrants from countries including Sudan and Eritrea had been removed peacefully after police broke through a ring of 200 to 250 protesters, he said.

Four police were slightly hurt, a statement said.

Hundreds of police officers have been reported injured in the past weeks in clashes with demonstrators during street marches across France the country – most of them rallies in protest over a bill that would make it easier in some cases to fire employees.

On Tuesday seven riot police officers were hurt in clashes with masked youths in the Western city of Nantes.

“This is totally unacceptable, with 300 police hurt since the start of the year,” said government spokesman Stephane Le Foll. “We will not let this pass.”

The primary focus of protest is the planned reform of some of the most extensive and protective labor rules in Europe.

An Elabe opinion poll released on Wednesday showed that three out of four French people oppose a bill that the government argues will remove red tape and encourage employers to recruit in a country where the jobless rate is above 10 percent.

Critics fear the bill will undermine employers’ obligations under the current national labor code.

Police chief Cadot is also seeking to tighten the noose on a rolling youth protest movement – called Nuit Debout – that has been organizing late-night sit-ins at the large Place de la Republique square in central Paris.

After repeated clashes where youths hurled petrol bombs and paving stones at police, he has banned alcohol consumption and late night music on the square and told Nuit Debout activists to quit the area every day before midnight.

(Reporting by Brian Love; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Paris police arrest 27 after overnight violence

French labour union workers and students attend a demonstration against the French labour law proposal in Paris

By Brian Love and Simon Carraud

PARIS (Reuters) – French riot police arrested 27 people during overnight clashes with dozens of youths in central Paris, following a day of protest marches over labor law reforms that turned violent.

Some opposition lawmakers and police union representatives urged a government crackdown on demonstrations and said it was time for an outright ban on the daily, mostly peaceful, youth protests at the site of Thursday night’s skirmishes.

The latest trouble erupted when police moved in to clear a group of about 150 youths from the Place de la Republique square in the early hours of the morning. Cars were set ablaze and lumps of concrete and cobblestones hurled at officers. Twenty-four of the 27 arrested were held in custody, police said.

“These are largely people coming looking for a fight,” Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.

The unrest comes at a time police forces and soldiers are working overtime to ensure security in the wake of last November’s deadly militant attacks on the capital.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets country-wide on Thursday to protest against labor law reforms aimed at making hiring and firing easier. Violent clashes broke out on the fringes of demonstrations in several cities.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 214 arrests were made in all. Seventy-eight police were injured, with one in a serious condition after a skull-cracking blow from a paving block.

Paris police prefect Michel Cadot has said organized groups were behind the protest violence, which has mushroomed despite the state of emergency imposed after November’s attacks.

Some police union representatives have called on police chiefs to issue fewer protest permits.

Nicolas Comte of the police union SGP police-FO said it was time to ban the Place de la Republique protest known as “Nuit Debout” – which roughly translates as “Up all night” – arguing gangs of hardcore troublemakers were hijacking the movement.

The French government has condemned the violence but, with just a year to national elections, has appeared keen to avoid the curfews it has the power to impose under the state of emergency.

Cazeneuve said almost 1,000 people had been arrested since protests started in March and dismissed calls for an all-out crackdown.

“State authority does not mean you abandon the rule of law,” the minister said.

(Additional reporting by Simon Carraud; Editing by Andrew Callus and Richard Lough)

Paris and Brussels Attack Suspect Arrested

CCTV image made available by Belgian Police shows a suspect in the attack which took place at the Brussels international airport of Zaventem

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Mohamed Abrini, wanted over November’s Islamic State attacks in Paris, has been arrested in Brussels, Belgium’s public broadcasters said on Friday, adding that he was probably involved in last month’s Brussels bombings.

Public prosecutors confirmed in a brief statement only that police had made several arrests related to the Brussels attacks.

Abrini, a 31-year-old Belgian, was “more than likely” the “man in the hat” seen on security camera footage at Brussels airport on March 22 with two suicide bombers, VRT and RTBF said on their websites, citing unidentified sources.

If confirmed, the arrests could mark a success for Belgian security services which have faced fierce criticism at home and abroad since Brussels-based militants organized the attacks that killed 130 in Paris on Nov. 13.

They took place a day after police issued new images and detail on the “man in the hat” and follow the arrest in Brussels three weeks ago of the prime surviving suspect in those attacks.

Four days after the March 18 arrest of Salah Abdeslam, with whom Abrini was seen driving towards Paris two days before the Paris attacks, brothers Brahim and Khalid El Bakraoui and a third local man Najim Laachraoui killed 32 people at Brussels airport and on a metro line running under EU institutions.

VRT and RTBF said Abrini was probably the man disguised in heavy glasses and a floppy hat who was pictured with Brahim Bakraoui and Laachraoui moments before the other two blew themselves up at the airport.

A second suspect held on Friday was believed to be a man seen with Khalid Bakraoui at a metro station shortly before the latter blew himself up on a train on the same line downtown.

VRT named the second man as Osama Kraiem. Broadcasters said he had also been caught on CCTV buying holdalls at a downtown mall which were later used in the Brussels bombings.

Abrini was arrested in the borough of Anderlecht, VRT said, next to the western district of Molenbeek which has been at the heart of Belgium’s troubles with Islamist militants.

He had been on Europe’s most wanted list since being seen on a motorway service station CCTV video driving with Abdeslam towards Paris from Belgium in a car used two days later in the attacks in which Abdeslam’s elder brother was a suicide bomber.

The “man in the hat” left the airport shortly after the twin suicide bombings and was tracked on CCTV for several miles into the city center. On Thursday, investigators released new video footage of him and urged people to look for his discarded coat.

Wearing glasses and a hat, he had been very difficult to identify from the footage showing him pushing a laden luggage trolley alongside the two who blew themselves up with similar bags. A third bomb was later found abandoned at the airport.

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by Robert-Jan Bartunek and Angus MacSwan)

Paris attack survivors seek solace with Bataclan security man who saved their lives

PARIS (Reuters) – Thirty-five-year-old Didi saved scores of lives on Nov. 13 when Islamic State militants attacked the Bataclan concert hall where he was in charge of security. Now those he saved say they turn to him for solace.

They meet, mostly in cafes, just to be together, to chat and support each other.

“It was just surreal to see him show such composure, and be methodical and efficient, and also so human … we lapped up everything he said, he was our point of reference,” says Myriam, a survivor who regularly meets up with him.

And while Didi, an Algerian who asked not to give his full name, says he is no hero, Myriam said meeting him is helping her move on.

Like other survivors of the attacks, in which 90 were killed, she sought him out for weeks to say “Thank you.”

“It was very important, it was key for me to feel better and move on with life. Being able to say thank you to someone about that night was something really good. To be able to hold someone in my arms and just tell him ‘you saved my life’,” said the single mother of a 10-month-old baby.

Didi, who has not been back to work since the attacks, is constantly on the phone with survivors.

“Without him, I would not be here. He was the one who told me ‘go there, get out this way, be careful’,” said Franck Auffret, who along with other survivors created the victims’ association “Life for Paris”.

“Someone tried to shoot me when I was in the street, and Didi told me to take shelter. Otherwise I would have stayed in the middle of the street and I would have been shot,” he said as he met with Didi and another survivor in a Paris cafe this week.

Survivors have launched petitions asking the government to reward the security manager for his acts, and sources at the foreign affairs ministry said they were discussing awarding Didi the Legion of Honour award.

Didi explained that like everyone else, he laid down on the floor, turned off his walkie-talkie and then took advantage of a moment when the attackers were reloading their weapons to tell people to head for the emergency exits.

While shots rang out, dozens of people packed into the emergency exit, which led to a small alleyway behind the venue. Didi opened the doors and guided concert-goers to a student residence down the street.

“Helping others and seeing them make progress in their healing process is the thing that’s going to help me get better and heal,” he told Reuters.

(Reporting by Pauline Mevel; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Belgium says found possible Paris attacks bomb factory in December raid

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian investigators believe explosives used in the attacks in Paris in November may have been made in an apartment in Brussels that was rented under a false name and where a fingerprint of a key fugitive was found.

Police found material that could be used to make explosives, traces of explosive acetone peroxide and handmade belts during a raid on the apartment on Dec. 10, federal prosecutors said in a statement on Friday.

Belgian newspaper De Standaard, which reported the raid in its Friday edition, said the investigators believed the explosives were probably packed into suicide belts in a hotel outside Paris in the lead-up to the Nov. 13 attacks.

Prosecutors investigating Belgian links to the Paris attacks said the apartment in the district of Schaerbeek had been rented under a false name that might have been used by a person already in custody in connection with the Paris attacks.

The find adds to indications that the Nov. 13 shooting and suicide bomb attacks in Paris, in which 130 people were killed, were at least partially planned in Belgium.

Two of the attackers had been living in Brussels and Belgian authorities have arrested 10 people.

Investigators also found a fingerprint of Salah Abdeslam, the brother of one of the attackers, who returned from Paris the morning after the attacks and has still not been found.

Many of those arrested in Belgium have links to Abdeslam, including two who drove from Brussels hours after the attacks to pick him up and another who drove him from one part of Brussels to Schaerbeek after his return.

According to De Standaard, investigators believe the fingerprint indicates Abdeslam used the flat as a safe house after the attacks, given signs that the apartment had been partially cleaned up, although they do not know how long he stayed there.

Belgian media also said this week investigators also now believe that two men controlled the Nov. 13 attacks by sending SMS text messages from Belgium during the evening.

Prosecutors appealed to the public for help on Dec. 4 in the hunt for these two men who traveled with Abdeslam to Hungary in September using fake identity cards with the names Samir Bouzid and Soufiane Kayal. Grainy images of their faces are shown on the federal police’s website.

The two, clearly older than the attackers, are believe to have played a pivotal role, according to Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique, in assuring logistics for the operation that was months in the planning.

The same false identity of Soufiane Kayal was used to rent a property in the Belgian town of Auvelais that possibly served as a safe house.

The other false identity card, for Samir Bouzid, was used four days after the attacks to transfer 750 euros at a Western Union office in Brussels to Hasna Aitboulahcen, who died in a police assault in St Denis on Nov. 18.

Separately, federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw warned in an interview on broadcaster VTM late on Thursday that the Jan. 15 anniversary of a foiled attack on Belgian soil could prompt someone to launch an attack in the country.

“We know that they opt for symbolic dates although on the other hand no one knows why Charlie Hebdo took place on Jan. 7,” he said.

(Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Toby Chopra)

France confirms suspected mastermind of Paris attacks killed in raid

By John Irish and Gregory Blachier

PARIS (Reuters) – The suspected mastermind of last week’s Paris attacks was killed in the police raid of an apartment north of the capital, French officials said on Thursday.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian militant who had boasted of mounting attacks in Europe for the Islamic State, was accused of orchestrating last Friday’s coordinated bombings and shootings in the French capital, which killed 129 people.

“It was his body we discovered in the building, riddled with bullets,” a statement from the Paris prosecutor said, a day after the pre-dawn raid. The prosecutor later added that it was unclear whether Abaaoud had detonated a suicide belt.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls broke the news in Parliament to applause from lawmakers who were voting on Thursday to extend the country’s state of emergency for another three months.

“We know today … that the mastermind of the attacks – or one of them, let’s remain cautious – was among those dead,” Valls told reporters. Confirmation that Abaaoud was in Paris will focus more attention on European security services, who ahead of Friday’s attacks had thought he was still in Syria.

“This is a major failing,” said Roland Jaquard at the International Observatory for Terrorism.

Early on Wednesday morning, investigations led police to the house where Abaaoud was holed up in the Paris suburb of St. Denis. Heavily armed officers stormed the building before dawn, triggering a massive firefight and multiple explosions.

Officials had said on Wednesday that two people were killed in the raid, including a female suicide bomber who blew herself up. Forensic scientists were trying to determine whether a third person had died. Eight people were arrested.

Two police sources and a source close to the investigation told Reuters the St. Denis cell had been planning a fresh attack on Paris’s La Defense business district. A source close to the investigation said the female bomber who was killed might have been Abaaoud’s cousin.

Investigators believe the attacks – the deadliest in France since World War Two – were set in motion in Syria, with Islamist cells in neighboring Belgium organizing the mayhem.

The victims came from 17 different countries, many of them young people out enjoying themselves at bars, restaurants, a concert hall and a soccer stadium near where Wednesday’s police raid took place.

Islamic State, which controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, has claimed responsibility, saying the attacks were in retaliation for French air raids against their positions over the past year.

France has called for a global coalition to defeat the extremists and has launched air strikes on Raqqa, the de-facto Islamic State capital in northern Syria, since the weekend. Russia has also targeted the city in retribution for the downing of a Russian airliner last month that killed 224.

The Russian air force on Wednesday carried out a “mass strike” on Islamic State positions around Syria, including Raqqa, Russian news agencies reported.

INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION

Paris and Moscow are not coordinating their air strikes in Syria, but French President Francois Hollande is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Nov. 26 to discuss how their countries’ militaries might work together.

Two days before that, Hollande will meet in Washington with U.S. President Barack Obama to discuss the role of a U.S.-led coalition in any unified effort against Islamic State.

France is one of several European countries participating in the U.S.-led coalition’s strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq, and two months ago became the only European country to join strikes in Syria as well.

Obama on Thursday reiterated the U.S. position that eradicating the group was tied up with ending the civil war in Syria, which could not happen as long as President Bashar al-Assad was in power.

“Bottom line is, I do not foresee a situation in which we can end the civil war in Syria while Assad remains in power,” he told reporters in Manila on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

(Reporting and writing by Crispian Balmer, Andrew Callus and Ingrid Melander; Editing by John Irish and Peter Graff)

Two die in police raid targeting suspected Paris attack mastermind

By Antony Paone and Emmanuel Jarry

SAINT DENIS, France (Reuters) – A woman suicide bomber blew herself up and another militant died on Wednesday when police raided an apartment in the Paris suburb of St. Denis seeking suspects in last week’s attacks in the French capital.

Three sources told Reuters the raid stopped a jihadist cell that had been planning an attack on Paris’s business district, La Defense, after coordinated bombings and shootings killed 129 across the city.

Officials said police had been hunting Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian Islamist militant accused of masterminding the Nov. 13 carnage, but more than nine hours after the launch of the pre-dawn raid it was still unclear if they had found him.

Seven people were arrested in the operation, which started with a barrage of gunfire, including three people who were pulled from the apartment, officials said.

“It is impossible to tell you who was arrested. We are in the process of verifying that. Everything will be done to determine who is who,” Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said at the end of the operation.

Molins said the assault was ordered after phone taps and surveillance operations led police to believe that Abaaoud might have been in St. Denis, near to the soccer stadium which was site of one of the attacks that hit Paris last week.

Investigators believe the attacks — the worst atrocity in France since World War Two — was set in motion from Syria, with Islamist cells in neighboring Belgium organizing the mayhem.

Local residents spoke of their fear and panic as the shooting started in St. Denis just before 4.30 a.m. (0330 GMT).

“We could see bullets flying and laser beams out of the window. There were explosions. You could feel the whole building shake,” said Sabrine, a downstairs neighbor from the apartment that was raided.

She told Europe 1 radio that she heard the people above her talking to each other, running around and reloading their guns.

Another local, Sanoko Abdulai, said that as the operation gathered pace, a young woman detonated an explosion.

“She had a bomb, that’s for sure. The police didn’t kill her, she blew herself up…,” he told Reuters, without giving details. Three police officers and a passerby were injured in the assault. A police dog was also killed.

 

FLEEING RAQQA

Islamic State, which controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, saying they were in retaliation for French air raids against their positions over the past year.

France has called for a global coalition to defeat the radicals and has launched three large air strikes on Raqqa — the de-facto Islamic State capital in northern Syria.

Russia has also targeted the city in retribution for the downing of a Russian airliner last month that killed 224 people.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Wednesday the bombardments have killed at least 33 Islamic State militants over the past three days.

Citing activists, the Observatory said Islamic State members and dozens of families of senior members had started fleeing Raqqa to relocate to Mosul in neighboring Iraq.

French prosecutors have identified five of the seven dead assailants from Friday – four Frenchmen and a man who was fingerprinted in Greece last month after arriving in the country via Turkey with a boatload of refugees fleeing the Syria war.

Police believe two men directly involved in the assault subsequently escaped, including Salah Abdeslam, 26, a Belgian-based Frenchman who is accused of having played a central role in both planning and executing the deadly mission.

French authorities said on Wednesday they had identified all the Nov. 13 victims. They came from 17 different countries, many of them young people out enjoying themselves at bars, restaurants, a concert hall and a soccer stadium.

Until Wednesday morning, officials had said Abaaoud was in Syria. He grew up in Brussels, but media said he moved to Syria in 2014 to fight with Islamic State. Since then he has traveled back to Europe at least once and was involved in a series of planned attacks in Belgium foiled by the police last January.

Two police sources and a source close to the investigation told Reuters that the St. Denis cell was planning a fresh attack. “This new team was planning an attack on La Defense,” one source said, referring to a high-rise neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris that is home to top banks and businesses.

A man in St. Denis told reporters that he had rented out the besieged apartment to two people last week.

“Someone asked me a favor, I did them a favor. Someone asked me to put two people up for three days and I did them a favor, it’s normal. I don’t know where they came from I don’t know anything,” the man told Reuters Television.

He was later arrested by police.

 

AIRCRAFT CARRIER

Paris and Moscow are not coordinating their air strikes in Syria, but French President Francois Hollande is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Nov. 26 to discuss how their countries’ militaries might work together.

Hollande is due to meet U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington two days before that to push for a concerted drive against Islamic State.

Obama said in Manila on Wednesday he wanted Moscow to shift its focus from propping up Syria’s government to fighting the group and would discuss that with Putin.

Russia is allied to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the West says he must go if there is to be a political solution to Syria’s prolonged civil war.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Western nations had to drop their demands for Assad’s exit if they wanted to build a coalition against Islamic State.

But Hollande said countries should set aside their sometimes diverging national interests to battle their common foe.

“The international community must rally around that spirit. I know very well that each country doesn’t have the same interests,” he told an assembly of city mayors on Wednesday.

He confirmed that a French aircraft carrier group would set sail later in the day and head to the eastern Mediterranean to intensify the number of strikes on militant targets in Syria. Russia has said its navy will cooperate with this mission.

 

(Additional reporting by Andrew Callus, Matthias Blamont, Marine Pennetier, Emmanuel Jarry, Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Jean-Baptiste Vey, Chine Labbé, Svebor Kranjc, John Irish in Paris, Alastair Macdonald and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels, and Matt Spetalnick in Manila, Victoria Cavaliere and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Amran Abocar in Toronto and Dan Wallis in Denver; Writing by Alex Richardson and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Andrew Callus and Sonya Hepinstall)

World shows solidarity, tightens security after Paris attacks

LONDON (Reuters) – World leaders responded to Friday’s bloody attacks in Paris with outrage and defiant pledges of solidarity, but several countries said they would tighten security, especially at their borders, and a few urged their citizens not to travel to France.

Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for the coordinated assault by gunmen and bombers that killed 127 people across Paris. President Francois Hollande said the attacks amounted to an act of war against France.

Several countries said they had stepped up their own security in response to the attacks, including Belgium and Switzerland, which border France. France’s neighbor to the south, Spain, said it was maintaining its state of alert at level 4 on a five-point scale.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Netherlands would tighten security at its borders and airports, and said the Dutch were “at war” with Islamic State.

“Our values and our rule of law are stronger than their fanaticism,” he said.

Belgium imposed additional frontier controls on road, rail and air arrivals from France and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel asked Belgians on Saturday not to travel to Paris unless necessary. Hong Kong also issued a travel alert for France.

Bulgaria imposed additional frontier controls on road and transit traffic.

London Metropolitan Police Service’s assistant commissioner Mark Rowley told the BBC that policing across Britain would be strengthened but said there would be no change to the threat level which currently stood at the second-highest category.

New York, Boston and other cities in the United States bolstered security on Friday night, but law enforcement officials said the beefed-up police presence was precautionary rather than a response to any specific threats.

The United States and Russia, divided on many issues including the war in Syria that has fueled Islamist violence, voiced their support for the French people on Friday night.

“Once again we’ve seen an outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians,” U.S. President Barack Obama said. “We stand prepared and ready to provide whatever assistance that the government and the people of France need.”

“Those who think that they can terrorize the people of France or the values that they stand for are wrong,” Obama said.

 

CONDOLENCES

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to Hollande and all the people of France following the “horrible terrorist attacks in Paris”, the Kremlin said in a statement.

“Russia strongly condemns this inhumane killing and is ready to provide any and all assistance to investigate these terrorist crimes.”

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egypt stood in solidarity with France and supported counter-terrorism efforts.

“Terrorism recognizes no boundaries or religion, and claims the lives of innocent people in different parts of the world,” a statement from the presidency’s office said.

Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body condemned the attacks as contrary to Islamic values.

“Terrorists are not sanctioned by Islam and these acts are contrary to values of mercy it brought to the world,” said a statement by the Council of Senior Scholars carried by the Saudi Press Agency on Saturday.

The Western defense alliance NATO said it stood with France, a founder member. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “We stand strong and united in the fight against terrorism. Terrorism will never defeat democracy.”

In Brussels the leaders of European Union institutions, which have been trying to coordinate security responses since the Islamist attacks in Paris in January, joined the chorus of support.

“I am confident the authorities and the French people will overcome this new trial,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said.

But in a sign of potential divisions ahead, Poland’s European affairs minister designate said after the attacks in Paris, Warsaw would not be able to accept migrants under European Union quotas.

In September, Poland backed a European Union plan to share out 120,000 refugees, many of them fleeing the war in Syria, across the 28-nation bloc.

Now, “in the face of the tragic acts in Paris, we do not see the political possibilities to implement (this),” said Konrad Szymanski, who takes up his position on Monday as part of a government formed by last month’s election winner, the conservative and euroskeptic Law and Justice (PiS) party.

 

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Islamic State claims Paris attacks that killed 127

By Ingrid Melander and Marine Pennetier

PARIS (Reuters) – Islamic State claimed responsibility on Saturday for a coordinated assault by gunmen and bombers that killed 127 people at locations across Paris, which President Francois Hollande said amounted to an act of war against France.

In the worst attack, a Paris city hall official said four gunmen systematically slaughtered at least 87 young people at a rock concert at the Bataclan concert hall before anti-terrorist commandos launched an assault on the building. Dozens of survivors were rescued, and bodies were still being recovered on Saturday morning.

Some 40 more people were killed in five other attacks in the Paris region, the official said, including an apparent double suicide bombing outside the Stade de France national stadium, where Hollande and the German foreign minister were watching a friendly soccer international.

The assaults came as France, a founder member of the U.S.-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks.

It was the worst such attack in Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, in which 191 died.

Hollande said the attacks had been organized from abroad by Islamic State “barbarians”, with internal help. Sources close to the investigation said a Syrian passport had been found near the body of one of the suicide bombers.

“Faced with war, the country must take appropriate action,” Hollande said after an emergency meeting of security chiefs. He also announced three days of national mourning.

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy added in a statement: “The war we must wage should be total.”

During a visit to Vienna, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said “we are witnessing a kind of medieval and modern fascism at the same time.”

In its claim of responsibility, Islamic State said the attacks were a response to France’s campaign against its fighters.

It also distributed an undated video in which a militant said France would not live peacefully as long it took part in U.S.-led bombing raids against them.

“As long as you keep bombing you will not live in peace. You will even fear traveling to the market,” said a bearded Arabic-speaking militant, flanked by other fighters.

A French government source told Reuters there were 127 dead, 67 in critical condition and 116 wounded. Six attackers blew themselves up and one was shot by police. There may have been an eighth attacker, but this was not confirmed.

The attacks, in which automatic weapons and explosives belts were used, lasted 40 minutes.

“The terrorists, the murderers, raked several cafe terraces with machine-gun fire before entering (the concert hall). There were many victims in terrible, atrocious conditions in several places,” police prefect Michel Cadot told reporters.

 

STATE OF EMERGENCY

After being whisked from the stadium near the blasts, Hollande declared a national state of emergency, the first since World War Two. Border controls were temporarily reimposed to stop perpetrators escaping.

Local sports events were suspended, department stores closed, the rock band U2 canceled a concert, and schools, universities and municipal buildings were ordered to stay shut on Saturday. Some rail and air services were expected to run.

Sylvestre, a young man who was at the Stade de France when bombs went off there, said he was saved by his cellphone, which he was holding to his ear when debris hit it.

“This is the cell phone that took the hit, it’s what saved me,” he said. “Otherwise my head would have been blown to bits,” he said, showing the phone with its screen smashed.

French newspapers spoke of “carnage” and “horror”. Le Figaro’s headline said: “War in the heart of Paris” on a black background with a picture of people on stretchers.

Emergency services were mobilized, police leave was canceled, 1,500 army reinforcements were drafted into the Paris region and hospitals recalled staff to cope with the casualties.

Radio stations warned Parisians to stay at home and urged residents to give shelter to anyone caught out in the street.

The deadliest attack was on the Bataclan, a popular concert venue where the Californian rock group Eagles of Death Metal was performing. Some witnesses in the hall said they heard the gunmen shout Islamic chants and slogans condemning France’s role in Syria.

The hall is near the former offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. France has been on high alert since Islamist gunmen attacked the paper and a kosher supermarket in January, killing 18 people.

Those attacks briefly united France in defense of freedom of speech, with a mass demonstration of more than a million people. But that unity has since broken down, with far-right populist Marine Le Pen gaining on both mainstream parties by blaming immigration and Islam for France’s security problems.

It was not clear what political impact the latest attacks would have less than a month before regional elections in which Le Pen’s National Front is set to make further advances.

The governing Socialist Party and the National Front suspended their election campaigns.

U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel led a global chorus of solidarity with France. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the “despicable attacks” while Pope Francis called the killings “inhuman”.

France ordered increased security at its sites abroad. Italy, Russia, Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands also tightened security measures.

Poland, meanwhile, said that the attacks meant it could not now take its share of migrants under a European Union plan. Many of the migrants currently flooding into Europe are refugees from Syria.

Julien Pearce, a journalist from Europe 1 radio, was inside the concert hall when the shooting began. In an eyewitness report posted on the station’s website, Pearce said several very young individuals, who were not wearing masks, entered the hall during the concert, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and started “blindly shooting at the crowd”.

“There were bodies everywhere,” he said.

 

POINT-BLANK

The gunmen shot their victims in the back, finishing some off at point-blank range before reloading their guns and firing again, Pearce said, after escaping into the street by a stage door, carrying a wounded girl on his shoulder.

Toon, a 22-year-old messenger who lives near the Bataclan, was going into the concert hall with two friends at around 10.30 p.m. (2130 GMT) when he saw three young men dressed in black and armed with machine guns. He stayed outside.

One of the gunmen began firing into the crowd. “People were falling like dominoes,” he told Reuters. He saw people shot in the leg, shoulder and back, with several lying on the floor, apparently dead.

Two explosions were heard near the Stade de France in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis, where the France-Germany soccer match was being played. A witness said one of the detonations blew people into the air outside a McDonald’s restaurant opposite the stadium.

In central Paris, shooting erupted in mid-evening outside a Cambodian restaurant in the capital’s 10th district.

Eighteen people were killed when a gunman opened fire on Friday night diners sitting at outdoor terraces in the popular Charonne area nearby in the 11th district.

The prosecutor mentioned five locations in close proximity where shootings took place around the same time.

 

(Additional reporting by Geert de Clercq, Jean-Baptiste Vey, Emmanuel Jarry, Elizabeth Pineau, Julien Pretot and Bate Felix Tabi-Tabe; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)