France to beef up security amid terror crackdown

PARIS (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande vowed tough anti-terror laws and tighter security as police Sunday staged more raids after a crackdown that saw one man killed and 11 arrested over an attack on a Jewish store.

"The state is totally mobilised to fight all terror threats," Mr Hollande said after meeting Jewish leaders at the Elysee palace, vowing that "planned anti-terror laws will be put before parliament as soon as possible." This would help "further strengthen measures to fight this scourge more efficiently," he said.

Mr Hollande said Saturday's raids, in which one man was killed and 11 other suspects arrested nationwide, had helped "crush an Islamist cell which we think had struck in the past and which could stage attacks in the coming weeks."

He gave no details about the cell, but officials evoked the growing threat of homegrown radical Islamists, many of whom were recent converts.