France ups security following lone wolf attacks

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Tuesday that more than 1,000 troops were deployed in public places, including the Champs-Elysees in Paris and main shopping districts in other French cities, in response to a spate of lone wolf attacks that have rocked the republic.

Late on Monday, a man rammed a van into a crowded Christmas market in the western city of Nantes, wounding 10 shoppers. One of the victims, a 25-year-old man, later died of his wounds. The assailant survived and is being questioned by police.

That attack came a day after a man shouting "Allahu Akbar" ["God is great"] injured 13 in a similar attack in the eastern city of Dijon.

On Saturday, an attacker in the city of Joue-les-Tours in central France, also yelling "Allahu Akbar," was shot and killed after stabbing three police officers.

"What we are seeing with events in Dijon and Nantes is that they are creating copycat reactions," Valls said on Tuesday after ordering the deployment of 300 additional troops in addition to nearly 800 already deployed.

France is already on high alert after calls earlier this year from militants to attack its citizens and interests in reprisal for French military strikes on Islamist strongholds in the Middle East and Africa.

'Highest' threat ever faced

Prosecutors have opened a terrorist investigation into Saturday's attack in Joue-les-Tours after a written "religious testament" was found in which the suspect invoked the Arabic word for God, "Allah," to give him strength.

However, authorities are not treating the other two other incidents as terrorism, disclosing that both attackers had suffered from mental health problems.

Valls said on Monday that France had "never before faced such a high threat linked to terrorism."

This comes as the far-right National Front political party has accused President Francois Hollande's Socialist government of trying to play down any threat posed by radical Islam in France. Headed by outspoken Islam critic Marine Le Pen, the National Front has redoubled its own calls for deportations of radical preachers and a tightening of border controls.

Federal Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said this week that authorities had made 118 arrests in its efforts to crack down on nationals who are leaving France to fight alongside jihadists in Iraq and Syria and return home as potential threats to security.

glb/lw (AFP, Reuters)