French police made 23 arrests and seized assault rifles and drugs in a nationwide overnight sweep on suspected Islamist militants following Friday’s attacks, the government said.
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“We mobilized 115,000 police officers, gendarmes, military across the country to ensure France’s security”, Cazeneuve told the France Info radio station.
President Francois Hollande has declared a state of emergency allowing administrative arrests and searches without a warrant following the bloodiest attacks in French history.
He said that “the majority of those who were involved in this attack were unknown to our services”.
A total of 104 suspects were placed under house arrest and seized weapons that include a rocket launcher, a CNN report said. A man carries brushes outside the Bataclan concert hall after the terrorist attacks in Paris, Monday, November 16, 2015.
He called France America’s oldest friend and first ally, and said the only response to the attacks must be a fierce sense of solidarity.
France is a member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes in Syria and Iraq against Islamic State. Four were French, while the fifth man was fingerprinted in Greece in October and was possibly Syrian.
Police have carried out a series of anti-terror raids across France and Belgium in the wake of the Paris attacks.
Speaking to the press after his release in the eastern Brussels suburb of Molenbeek, Mohamed said his family did not know what his brothers were involved in nor the whereabouts of his Salah.
Meanwhile, the manhunt goes on for Saleh Abdeslam who is wanted on suspicion of hiring a black VW Polo used in Friday’s attack which left 132 dead. Believed to be close to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Abaaoud was linked to a plan to attack Belgian police that was thwarted in January.
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He is believed to have fled across the border to his native Belgium.
