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2nd LD: France halts army personnel reduction in wake of Paris terror attack: Hollande

Xinhua, November 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

French President Francois Hollande announced Monday that all the reductions of army personnel will be suspended till 2019.

"I decided there will be no reduction of Defence staff before 2019," Hollande announced in a speech addressed to the two chambers of parliament at Versailles.

"Our armies are more and more solicited by the operations abroad that we will continue, for the safety of our compatriots," he added.

Hollande also announced France will create more police and gendarmes jobs in the coming two years as a security measure to protect the French people.

"5,000 additional jobs of police and gendarmes will be created within 2 years" to bring the total number to "10,000 new posts during the five-year period," he said.

Francois Hollande also expressed his wish to extend the State of Emergency to three months.

"I decided that Parliament would be given on Wednesday a bill extending the state of emergency to three months," Hollande said, inviting the parliamentarians to vote on it by the end of the week.

Hollande also called for, in his speech, the solidarity of other EU member countries, noting that "the enemy is not just an enemy of France, it's also the enemy of Europe".

He also proposed for the EU member states to establish "coordinated and systematic controls at the borders", as well as to create an European passenger name record (PNR) to "allow the traceability of the return of jihadists".

Following the airstrikes carried out by French army Sunday night at Raqqa, Syria, Hollande announced that " France will intensify its operations in Syria".

"We will continue the strikes in the coming weeks", he noted, adding that the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle will be deployed to east Mediterranean, which will "triple our capacity of action".

"There will be no respite nor truce", Hollande stressed.

Hollande proposed that the Security Council of the United Nations meet as soon as possible to adopt a resolution to destroy Islamic State (IS), and he will meet with U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin to form "one great coalition" facing the terrorists in Syria.

"I will meet in the coming days with President Obama and President Putin to unite our forces and achieve a result that is now too long postponed," he announced.

There were 19 foreign nationalities among the 129 victims of the deadly attacks that took place Friday night in Paris and its suburbs.

"What was targeted by the terrorists, it's the France open to the world," Hollande said, adding that "dozens of foreign friends are among the victims, representing 19 nationalities".

He also pointed out that the attacks were "decided and planned in Syria, organized in Belgium and perpetrated on our territory with French complicities".

Simultaneous shootings and explosions at restaurants, Bataclan concert hall and the national stadium in Paris on Friday night killed at least 129 people and injured hundreds of others. Endit