Macron claims Islamists who hit Russia had tried to attack France

PARIS (Reuters) – President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday the gunmen who killed 137 people in a concert hall outside Moscow were part of an Islamist group that was behind foiled attempts to attack France over the past few months.

This explains why the French government on Sunday increased the security alert to its highest level, he said.

Russia, which has challenged assertions by the United States that the Islamic State terrorist group orchestrated Friday’s attack, continued on Monday to suggest Ukraine was to blame.

Macron said this was “cynical and counterproductive.”

“This attack was claimed by Islamic State,” he said, “and the information available to us, to our [intelligence] services, as well as to our main partners, indicates indeed that it was an entity of the Islamic State that instigated this attack.”

“This group has attempted several times to hit France,” Macron said, referring to Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, which is known as ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, which claimed responsibility for Friday’s Moscow attack.

France has been hit by a series of Islamist attacks over the past decade, the worst of which, in 2015, targeted the Bataclan concert hall and cafes and bars in Paris, which some Parisians said helped them understand why security would now be beefed up.

French officials were holding a meeting on Monday to look at specific measures to step up security, such as checking bags on entrance to concert halls or places of worship.

“It [the Moscow concert hall attack] brings to mind the Bataclan years,” IT worker Raffele Alegretti said. “So, yes, it’s something that has left a mark in us forever.”

“So yes, I completely agree with the strengthening of the Vigipirate [public security] plan, because, in my opinion, people are a little worried,” he said, citing the Olympic Games that Paris will host this summer.

Movie producer Lou Bardou-Jacquet, 25, said: “There has already been an attack during the Olympics [in Munich in 1972]... Obviously, these are worrying events, in terms of security.”

Macron, who was speaking as he arrived for a visit in French Guiana, also said France had offered to increase cooperation with Russian intelligence services over the concert hall attack “so that we continue to fight effectively against these groups, which are targeting several countries.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not publicly mentioned Islamic State in connection with the attackers.