Europe’s capitals prepare for a nervous New Year’s

European capitals have tightened security ahead of New Year celebrations, erecting concrete barriers in city centres and boosting police numbers after the Islamic State attack in Berlin last week that killed 12 people.

In the German capital, police have closed the Pariser Platz square in front of the Brandenburg Gate and are deploying 1700 extra officers, many along a party strip where armoured cars will flank concrete barriers blocking off the area.

‘‘Every measure is being taken to prevent a possible attack,’’ Berlin police spokesman Thomas Neuendorf said. Some police officers would carry submachineguns, he said – an unusual tactic for German police.

Last week’s attack in Berlin, in which a Tunisian man ploughed a truck into a Christmas market, has prompted German lawmakers to call for tougher security measures.

In Milan, where police shot the man dead, security checks have been set up around the main square. Trucks have been banned from the centres of Rome and Naples. Police and soldiers cradling machineguns are patrolling tourist sites, including Rome’s Colosseum.

Madrid is deploying an extra 1600 police for the New Year weekend. For the second year running, access to the city’s central Puerta del Sol square, where revellers traditionally gather to welcome the new year, will be restricted to 25,000 people, with police setting up barricades to control access.

In Cologne in western Germany, where hundreds of women were sexually assaulted and robbed outside the central train station on New Year’s Eve last year, police have installed new video surveillance cameras to monitor the station square.

The attacks in Cologne, where police said the suspects were mainly of North African and Arab appearance, fuelled criticism of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to accept nearly 900,000 migrants last year. The Berlin attack has intensified that criticism.

In Frankfurt, home to the European Central Bank and Germany’s biggest airport, more than 600 police officers are on duty for New Year’s Eve, twice as many as in 2015.

In Brussels,

French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux

where Islamist We must remain vigilant at all times, and we are asking citizens to also be vigilant. suicide bombers killed 16 people and injured more than 150 in March, the mayor had considered whether to cancel New Year fireworks, but decided this week that they would go ahead.

In Paris, where Islamic State gunmen killed 130 people last November, authorities have prepared for a high-security weekend, the highlight of which will be the fireworks on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, where some 600,000 people are expected.

Ahead of New Year’s Eve, heavily armed soldiers have been patrolling popular Paris tourist sites such as the Eiffel Tower, the Triomphe and the museum.

In the Paris metropolitan area, 10,300 police, gendarmes, soldiers, firemen and other personnel have been deployed, fewer than the 11,000 at New Year’s Eve 2015, just weeks after the terrorist attack at the Bataclan theatre. Searches and crowd filtering will be carried out by private security agents, particularly near the Champs-Elysees, where thousands of people are expected.

Across France, more than 90,000 police, including 7000 soldiers, will Arc de Louvre be on duty for New Year’s Eve.

On Thursday, police in southwest France arrested a man suspected of having planned an attack on New Year’s Eve. Two other people, one of whom was suspected of having planned an attack on police, were arrested in a separate raid, also in southwest France, near Toulouse.

‘‘We must remain vigilant at all times, and we are asking citizens to also be vigilant,’’ French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux said, noting that the threat of a terrorist attack was high.

In Vienna, police have handed out more than a thousand pocket alarms to women, eager to avoid a repeat of the sexual assaults at New Year in Cologne in 2015.

‘‘At present, there is no evidence of any specific danger in Austria. However, we are talking about an increased risk situation,’’ Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said.

‘‘We are leaving chance.’’

In Ukraine, police yesterday arrested a man who they suspected of planning a Berlin copycat attack in the city of Odessa.

Revellers packing New York City’s Times Square celebrations will be surrounded by garbage trucks to stop attackers like those in Germany and France from ploughing trucks into the expected crowd of a million people who will watch the ball drop at midnight.

Officials said there were no known, credible threats against the gathering. nothing to