French PM urges European Union to ‘take responsibility’ for borders

On Friday, prosecutors said the other two men who detonated explosives vests outside the stadium had entered Europe through Greece on the same day, October 3, pretending to be refugees fleeing the war in Syria.

On Wednesday, the French police also raided a suburban Paris apartment where the suspected mastermind of last week’s attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud was believed to be holed up.

“This bill will also encourage the closing of mosques if they become too radical”, Valls said.

With France still reeling from the attacks, France’s lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, voted Thursday to extend a state of emergency for three months.

Hamza Attou and Mohammed Amri, who were charged earlier this week with helping to smuggle Abdeslam out of France in the hours after the multiple shootings and bombings on November 13, will be kept in custody for another week, prosecutors said.

Abaaoud has reportedly tried to recruit women living in Spain for ISIS, Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz said Thursday.

Across Europe plans to curb civil liberties and reintroduce border controls have been announced, following the Paris massacre. A woman there also was killed when she blew herself up with a suicide belt, investigators said. “It’s a condition of our collective security”, he stated, according AFP.

In an unusual step, the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) and several of its member groups urged their imams to denounce the attacks in their sermons yesterday and distributed suggested texts.

Meanwhile, Russian and Syrian warplanes launched dozens of air strikes on Islamic State-held areas of eastern Syria, after the group’s fighters staged an assault on an air base near the city of Deir al-Zor, a monitoring group said. This is under a police directive issued to coincide with the state of emergency.

Valls warned lawmakers that Islamic extremists could resort to such weapons, although he did not say there was any specific threat looming.

News of Abaaoud’s death seemed to ease a few tension in a country deeply shocked by the attacks, though officials said the aftermath was far from over.

It is urgent that Europe wakes up, organises itself and defends itself against the terrorist threat, ‘ he said.

French President Francois Hollande has ordered to step up airstrikes against IS in Syria and Iraq.

In a separate measure, European Union countries plan a crackdown on virtual currencies and anonymous payments made online and via pre-paid cards in a bid to tackle terrorism financing, a draft document seen by Reuters said.