France has ordered tightened security in public buildings and transport following action against radical Islamists both in Mali and Somalia, President Francois Hollande said on Saturday.
Hollande said France “has to take all necessary precautions” in the face of a terrorist threat, including “surveillance of our public buildings and our transport network”.
The French leader evoked Vigipirate, France’s national security alert system, created in 1978 and updated several times.
The move came after a botched French commando raid in Somalia to free an intelligence agent which killed at least 19 people including two French soldiers, and also the deployment of French air power to help the army in Mali stop Islamist rebels from advancing south.
One of the Islamist groups targeted by French military action in Mali, Ansar Dine, had earlier threatened reprisals against France.
The Shebab, al-Qaeda’s local franchise in Somalia, which has held the Frenchman for more than three years, also issued a warning after the failed rescue bid.
“In the end, it will be the French citizens who will inevitably taste the bitter consequences of their government’s devil-may-care attitude towards hostages,” they said in a statement.