French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 128 new raids were conducted on Monday night on suspected militant spots across France.
Twenty-three arrests were made, and 31 weapons were seized, including a rocket launcher in Lyon.
“The majority of those who were involved in this attack were unknown to our services,” Cazenueve told a local Radio.
French forces also raided the north-eastern city of Strasbourg, after witnesses claimed to have seen fugitive suspect Salah Abdeslam. However, he has not yet been found.
The key mastermind of the attacks is believed to be Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is thought to be currently in Syria with the “Islamic State” (IS) militant organisation. He is believed to be a Belgian with Moroccan origins, raised in Molenbeek, a district of Brussels known for its many Arab immigrants, blighted by high unemployment and overcrowded housing.
French President Francois Hollande addressed the Parliament yesterday, urging it to extend the state of emergency for three more months. He also said more funds will be directed to security and defence.
He added that the constitution needed to be amended as “we need an appropriate tool we can use without having to resort to the state of emergency”.
The French president suggested that the law must make it easier to strip dual nationals of their French citizenship if they are convicted of a terrorist offence, as long as this does not render them stateless, in addition to deportation of foreigners who pose “a particularly grave threat to the security of the nation”.
Alain Juppé, the former French prime minister who served under Jacques Chirac, criticised the decision to cut tens of thousands of jobs in the security services before 2012.
“Creating 8,500 police and security jobs is the right thing to do. We were undoubtedly wrong in 2012 to scrap tens of thousands of jobs,” Juppé told French media.
During a meeting with the French president, US foreign minister John Kerry said IS “will feel even greater pressure”. “There is a clear strategy in place and step by step I am confident that the momentum will pick up,” he added.
Kerry also said that he discussed with Hollande the “significant steps that we believe we can take together in a number of different areas to increase our efforts, and be more effective even, against IS”.
