France braces for intense security around Euro 2016 championship

WASHINGTON. KAZINFORM Gun attacks, remotely-detonated bombs, and even drones carrying explosives and chemical weapons: these are just a few of the terrorist threats French authorities are preparing for at the Euro 2016 football championships, which get underway on Friday.

Just days before the championships kick off, Ukraine security services say they have arrested a Frenchman and an accomplice who were planning attacks on French targets before and during the tournament.

Today's arrest of a French citizen in Ukraine highlights the risk from terrorism isn't just from ISIS.

 

As President Francois Hollande and other French officials have acknowledged, 100% security and zero risk are impossible to guarantee. Isis has made clear its intent to attack the tournament.

In a radio interview with France Info on Sunday, Hollande said: "We have invested all the means to succeed, and we must not allow ourselves to be pressured by the threat." But he cautioned: "It exists, this threat."

France has extended its state of emergency, introduced after the terror attacks in Paris last November, until the end of July. It gives police greater powers of house arrest and allows for demonstrations and rallies to be banned.

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