FRENCH Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Tuesday that the terrorist risk remains “high” in France, as the country marked the fifth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.
The terrorist threat to France “has not disappeared” and “remains high,” M Philippe said in an interview with RTL radio.
The secular country remains on high alert after being the target of a string of deadly attacks by Islamist extremists since 2015, with more than 250 people killed in total.
“I have made no secret of the fact that the terrorist risk to France remains high. It would be madness to forget this. Recent events have shown us that the risk of a terrorist attack on French soil has not disappeared,” he warned.
France remains on high alert after being hit by a string of attacks by jihadist extremists since 2015, with more than 250 people killed in total.
The latest terror attack took place on Friday, when a knife-wielding man ran amok in a park south of Paris, killing a man walking with his wife and wounding two other people before being shot dead by police.
The attacker, identified as 22-year-old Nathan C., was a radicalised Muslim who converted to Islam in 2017 and is believed to have suffered serious psychiatric problems since he was a child.
He shouted the Muslim invocation “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) during the attack, according to local magistrates.
The attack in the Paris suburb of Villejuif came just four days before the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
Five years ago, Islamist gunmen pledging allegiance to the terrorist groups Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) launched a three-day rampage in which they killed 17 people.
On January 7, 2015, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi burst into the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and opened fire with automatic weapons, killing 12 people and wounding several others.
They then ran out into the street where they were challenged by a police officer, Lieutenant Ahmet Merabet. He was shot dead.
On January 8, their accomplice Amedy Coulibaly shot dead a police officer in the Paris suburb of Montrouge and a day later, attacked a kosher supermarket east of Paris and killed four customers.
All three attackers were killed by police in separate standoffs on January 9.
But the deadliest attack came in November 2015, when 130 people died and scores more were wounded in a series of coordinated bombings and shootings at Paris’ Bataclan concert hall, several bars and restaurants and the Stade de France sports stadium.
However, some 60 attacks have been thwarted since 2013, according to interior ministry figures.