Officials at the U.S. State Department believe American citizens are among the injured in Paris, though deputy spokesman Mark Toner would not say whether any Americans had been killed.
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Molins, the prosecutor, said all seven attackers wore identical suicide vests containing the explosive TATP.
It was not clear what political impact the latest attacks would have less than a month before regional elections in which Le Pen’s National Front is set to make further advances.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the near-simultaneous attacks and has warned that France would remain at the “top of the list of targets” over its airstrikes on IS territory in Syria and Iraq.
The Paris stock exchange operator said it would open trading as normal on Monday.
At the very least, it will further complicate Europe’s struggle to work out what to do with the ever-growing numbers of refugees from Middle East war zones. Politicians in a few countries argue the open-door policy advocated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel will let more jihadists into the 28-nation bloc.
They’re also likely to re-open the issue of how to better integrate France’s Muslim population, the largest in Europe – especially if a few of the gunmen are found to have been French citizens, as in the Charlie Hebdo violence. Three suicide bombs targeted spots around the national Stade de France stadium, in the north of the capital, where Hollande was watching a France-Germany soccer match.
“Everyone was on the floor, no one moved”, said another eyewitness who had been at the Petit Cambodge restaurant.
Investigating police officers work outside the Stade de France stadium after everal dozen people were killed in attacks around Paris.
At the Bataclan concert hall, where at least 80 people were killed by men firing automatic rifles last night, French authorities are still working to remove bodies.
Two men emerged from the auto with Kalashnikovs before shooting two people on rental bikes. “They cried, ‘It’s Hollande’s fault.’ I heard one of the shooters shout, ‘Allahu Akbar'”. “It is this Paris that was hit, probably because this example of living together, which is so strong in our city, is unbearable for fanatical people”, she said. Another woman lying next to her was severely wounded. “I don’t know how many guardian angels I had looking out for me”, she said. “These places are the places we visit every week”, he said.
France has been on high alert since the attacks in January against Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket that left 17 dead. “It represents a major escalation in tactics and strategy”.
“The police assault was extremely hard”.
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Until Western authorities openly acknowledge these repeated intelligence failures and begin to take action to address the problem, we can expect more instances of these “known wolf” terror attacks for the foreseeable future.
