European Union ministers to back France after attacks, tighten controls

France’s Senate on Friday voted to extend for three months a state of emergency, which expands police powers to carry out arrests and searches and allows authorities to forbid the movement of people and vehicles. France is urging its European partners to dramatically toughen EU borders to prevent more terrorist attacks.

Cazeneuve said the European Commission would present plans to introduce “obligatory checks at all external borders for all travellers”, including EU citizens, by the year’s end.

But on Monday, the French received a tip-off from the intelligence agency of a non-European country that Abaaoud – who had previously boasted of moving between Belgium and Syria unhindered – had managed to cross back into the European Union through Greece.

The European Union exchanges such information with the US, Australia and Canada but has been unable to agree on a system for sharing data among European Union members.

However, a senior Greek security official has now insisted there was no record of him passing through the country, which is at the forefront of Europe’s immigration crisis, although he could not rule out him having entered on a false passport.

The French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that the measures represented a “crucial” change. “Europe owes it to all victims of terrorism and those who are close to them”.

The narrative provided by French officials on the brazen and carefully coordinated attacks a week ago on France’s national stadium and Paris cafes, restaurants and a theater raises disturbing questions about how a wanted militant already suspected of involvement in multiple plots could slip into Europe undetected.

His comments came after perverse ringleader of last Friday’s massacre, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed as cops stormed an apartment block in a Paris suburb.

The minister said that Paris had received “no information” from other European countries about Abaaoud’s arrival on the continent.

The UN Security Council Friday urged its members to ramp up their fight against Islamic State jihadists after the Paris attacks, as Europe said it would tighten border checks and Brussels issued its highest terror alert.

In the debris, a handbag was found containing a passport in the name of Aitboulahcen.

The Belgian capital was home to the suspected organizer of the November 13 Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and Belgium has filed charges of “participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization” against three suspects relating to the Paris attacks. The identity of the other body has not been announced.

Belgian authorities on Friday released seven people detained a day earlier, but continued to hold one person suspected of links to the Paris attacks and another linked to one of the suicide bombers, Bilal Hadfi, but not directly to the Paris attacks. Officials have said some may have taken advantage of the large influx of refugees from Syria over the summer to evade normal border controls.

It is now thought the suicide bomber in the siege was a man, and that Aitboulahcen did not blow herself up. The ceremony will be at the gold-domed Hotel des Invalides, where Napoleon’s tomb lies and which is seen as a symbol of France’s military and worldwide strength.

Hollande said he would appeal to world leaders to form a wider coalition to go after ISIS, including meeting next week with U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin. More than 350 other people were wounded in the carnage.

“We now know that Abaaoud, the brain behind these attacks – one of the brains, because we must be particularly cautious, and we know what the threats are – was among the dead”, Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the lower house of the French Parliament.

Under gray skies and rain, Parisians marked a week since the bloodbath with silence and reflection.

“We must move swiftly and with force”, Cazeneuve said.

It is also believed the extremists were about to carry out a second barbaric attack.