Gabriel Attal announced Monday March 25 that “exceptional resources” would be deployed “everywhere on the territory” with “4,000 additional soldiers (…) on alert.” His decision comes after the Moscow attack claimed by the Islamic State organization and the raising of the Vigipirate system to its maximum level in France.
“The Islamist terrorist threat is real, it is strong” and “has never weakened,” declared the Prime Minister during a visit to Saint-Lazare station, in Paris, as part of the recovery from Vigipirate. For example, Mr. Attal claimed that two attack plans had been “foiled” in France since the start of the year.
According to the Ministry of the Interior speaking to Agence France-Presse, the first dates back to January 10, with the arrest of a person for a project targeting “Jewish targets” or an “LGBT nightclub.” . The second dates from March 5 and involved a 62-year-old man planning to attack Christian religious buildings, according to the ministry.
45 attack plans foiled since 2017
“We act upstream, we act on all fronts. Our fight against terrorism cannot be fought with words. It is very concrete and our hand will never tremble in the face of terrorism, never in the face of Islamism,” added Gabriel Attal, affirming that 45 attack plans had been foiled since 2017 and that 760 radicalized foreigners had been “returned to the border” over the same period.
In October, Vigipirate had already been raised to the “emergency attack” level after the murder of teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras by a radicalized former student. At the request of Gabriel Attal, the Secretary General of Defense and National Security convened a meeting on Monday morning bringing together all the security services called upon to adapt their posture following the lifting of the system.
The General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) will bring together “all intelligence actors” on Thursday morning to “draw all the consequences of the Moscow attack”, announced Gérald Darmanin on Monday. “We prevent attacks from taking place almost every month,” insisted the Minister of the Interior.