FRANCE is in a state of high alert with military action against Islamic radicals in Mali and Somalia triggering fears of a backlash on home soil.
Armed troops patrolled rail and subway stations in Paris and security around airports and public buildings was stepped up as Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian admitted the authorities were monitoring suspected Islamic militants based in France.
"The terrorist danger is permanent, it is not a new thing," Le Drian said on Sunday. "But we have to be very careful and take every precaution necessary in what is a very sensitive situation."
Le Drian acknowledged there were Islamic radicals based in France who are thought capable of becoming involved in terrorist actions, but he stressed that these individuals were subject to tight surveillance.
The existence of a home-grown Islamist threat in France became clear last year when Mohamed Merah went on a shooting spree in and around the southern city of Toulouse, killing three French paratroopers, a Rabbi and three Jewish schoolchildren before being killed himself in a police siege.
The Merah killings were followed by the dismantling, in October, of a suspected Islamist "terrorist cell" that prosecutors described as the most serious internal threat the country has faced since the Algerian-based GIA carried out a string of deadly bombings in the 1990s.
It was a splinter group of the GIA that evolved into what is now known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the main organisation pulling the strings in northern Mali.
The increased security came as French warplanes bombarded Islamists in central Mali for a third day and in the aftermath of a botched commando raid in Somalia to free a French intelligence agent held there since 2009.
One French soldier died in the operation, another is missing presumed dead and the Paris authorities have also said they believe the hostage has been killed.
At least 17 Islamist guerillas were killed in the operation, according to French sources, and witnesses said at least eight civilians were caught in the crossfire.
In Mali, the army claimed that up to 100 Islamist fighters were killed during the liberation of the central town of Konna on Friday.
Ansar Dine, one of the Islamist groups which controls the north of Mali, and al-Shabab, al-Qaeda's local franchise in Somalia, have both warned that France will face retaliation over these deaths.
"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," al-Shabab said in a statement.
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