“The threat is very high, and we must arm ourselves in the face of this threat,” declared Gérald Darmanin

The decision was taken, on the evening of Sunday March 24, to increase the security threat to the maximum, “emergency attack”. “The threat is very high, and we must arm ourselves against this threat which today affected Russia (…) but which affects all of Europe and the entire Westnt”, reacts the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. The tenant of Beauvau recalls that the Islamic State “is the author of the last eight foiled attacks in France”.

An external threat

According to the minister, the Islamic State is today “now capable of launching remote attacks”. Is a new external threat looming over France?

“There is a main threat which is the threat among us, what we call the endogenous threat: people who watch jihadist content and who take action, often with a knife. (…) Then there is a exogenous threat from the outside, like the Bataclan, like [l’]attack in Russia. (…) This order from the outside from the inside, in particular by particular communities, we must pay particular attention to it”, declares Gérald Darmanin. The Minister of the Interior finally recalls the number of people on file S by France: 5,000, but “which are not all on the national territory”.