French mourn and hunt for accomplices after police attacked

A day after a small group of people on the fringe of an otherwise peaceful labor protest clashed with police and broke windows at a Paris children’s hospital, Prime Minister Manuel Valls has called on unions to cease holding protests in the French capital.

Larossi Abballa, who French police say stabbed to death a police officer and his partner in the northwestern Paris suburb of Magnanville, France, June 13, 2016.

Mr Valls said on France Inter radio: ‘I said we were at war, that this war will take a generation’.

French President Francois Hollande and his ministers stand in silent tribute to the two police officials murdered this week.

Prosecutors say Abballa had a hit list of high-profile targets that included police, politicians, journalists, rappers and other public figures.

The victims were named as Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, the 42-year-old deputy police chief in the nearby town of Les Mureaux, and Jessica Schneider, 36, an administrative assistant in the police department of another nearby suburb.

Valls blasted the troublemakers, who he said wanted to “kill” the police officers patrolling the demonstration and accused the hardline CGT union, which organised the marches, of an “ambiguous attitude” towards those attacking the authorities. “Whenever terrorist content is reported to us, we remove it as quickly as possible”, it said.

French Muslim leader Dalil Boubakeur on Wednesday condemned the attack and said jihadists like Abballa should not be allowed to move around “freely”.

Abballa made the statements in exchanges with police during a three-hour stand-off on Monday.

Abballa was sentenced in September 2013 to two-and-a-half years in prison over his role in a jihadist group with links to Pakistan, but was freed because of time already served awaiting trial.

Right-wing critics called Tuesday for “retention centers” for radical Islamists, in the same way that individuals with unsafe mental health problems can be detained.

But Valls ruled out the idea as “dangerous”.

PARIS (AP) — France’s president and prime minister warned on Wednesday that the world faces a long war to defeat terrorism.

Abballa had been under phone surveillance since February, but nothing had been found “to indicate he was preparing to carry out a violent act”, Urvoas said.

FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub on June 12, 2016 in Orlando, Florida.

Officials say three people have been taken in for questioning.