Addressing both houses of parliament at the Palace of Versailles yesterday, French President François Hollande said the country was engaged in “a war against jihadi terrorism.”
He said he would meet US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss more effective coordination of French resources with those of the US and Russia.
“More strikes are needed, and we will carry them out,” Hollande said, adding: “More support for all fighting against Isis is needed, and France will provide it. But we need a union of all who can fight this terrorist army in a single coalition.”
French President Francois Hollande will meet US Secretary of State John Kerry in Paris today, AFP reports.
They will hold talks at the Elysee Palace from 9:40am local time in the wake of Friday’s jihadist attacks on Paris that left 129 dead, a statement from the French presidency said.
Extending France’s national state of emergency to three months, Hollande called for changes to the constitution to counter terrorism, The Guardian reports.
French law must allow dual nationals to be stripped of their citizenship if they were convicted of terrorism, and banned from entering France if they presented a terrorism risk, he said.
French warplanes pounded Islamic State positions in Syria on Sunday as police in Europe widened their investigations into coordinated attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Friday’s suicide bombings and shootings, which have re-ignited a row over Europe’s refugee crisis and drawn calls to block a huge influx of Muslim asylum-seekers.
French police have launched an international hunt for a Belgian-born man they believe helped organise the assaults with two of his brothers. One of the brothers died in the attacks, while the second is under arrest in Belgium, Reuters reports.
A further two French suicide attackers have been identified, police said, while the identity of four other assailants, who were all killed, was still under review.
France has been bombing Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria for months as part of a US-led operation. Following Friday’s mayhem, Paris vowed to destroy the group. Underlining its resolve, French jets on Sunday launched their biggest raids in Syria to date, hitting its stronghold in Raqqa.
“The raid ... including 10 fighter jets, was launched simultaneously from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Twenty bombs were dropped,” the Defence Ministry said. Among the targets were a munitions depot and training camp, it said.
There was no word on casualties or the damage inflicted.
The Paris attacks were seen causing a short-term sell-off in global stock markets and Asian shares fell on Monday, but few strategists expected a prolonged economic impact or change in prevailing market directions.
Seven held in Belgium
The investigation into Friday’s attacks, the worst atrocity in France since World War II, led swiftly to Belgium after police discovered two of the cars used by the Islamist militants had been rented in the Brussels region.
By Sunday, Belgian officials said they had arrested seven people in Brussels. But one of the people who had hired the cars slipped through the fingers of the police. He was pulled over on the French-Belgian border on Saturday, but later released.
Police named the man they were seeking as Salah Abdeslam, saying the 26-year-old was “dangerous”. Although he was born in Brussels, French authorities said he was a French national.
“The abject attacks that hit us on Friday were prepared abroad and mobilised a team in Belgium that benefited ... from help in France,” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters after meeting his Belgian counterpart in Paris.
The death toll rose to 132, with three more people dying on Sunday from their wounds. Some 103 have been identified, including many young people and many foreigners, out relaxing on a Friday night in one of the world’s most visited cities.
In a sign that at least one gunman might have escaped, a source close to the investigation said a Seat car believed to have been used by the attackers had been found in the eastern Paris suburb of Montreuil with three Kalashnikov rifles inside.
Police have formally named just one of the attackers: Ismael Omar Mostefai, 29, from Chartres, southwest of Paris. He was identified by the print from one of his fingers that was severed when his suicide vest exploded.
French media named the two other French assailants as Bilal Hadfi and Ibrahim Abdeslam.
Police said they had found a Syrian passport near one of the other dead gunmen. Greece said the passport holder had crossed from Turkey to the Greek islands last month and then registered for asylum in Serbia before heading north, following a route taken by hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers this year.
France declared three days of national mourning after the attacks.