French President Calls Paris Attacks ‘Act Of War’ By Islamic State

11.14.2015 | News | Daily Surge |

French President François Hollande on Saturday morning declared that Islamic State (ISIS) is to blame for last night’s terrorist attacks across Paris that left at least 127 people dead and described the attack as an “act of war”.

“It is an act of war that was waged by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, by Daesh, against France,” Hollande said in an address to the nation broadcast on French TV, using an Arabic name for Islamic State. “This act of war was prepared and planned from the outside, with accomplices inside.”

Hollande said France would respond to the attacks and “will be merciless toward the barbarians of Islamic State group.”

“France will triumph over barbarism,” he said.

The Socialist president announced a state of emergency on Friday night, as France reinstituted border checks.

He declared three days of mourning in his address Saturday and said he would address the two houses of parliament in Versailles on Monday.

The Islamic State group on Saturday claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris in a statement posted to social media and said the attacks were retaliation for French airstrikes against the group in Syria and Iraq.

The statement said eight militants armed with explosive belts and automatic weapons attacked carefully chosen targets in the “capital of adultery and vice,” including a soccer stadium where France was playing Germany, and the Bataclan concert hall, where an American rock band was playing, and “hundreds of apostates were attending an adulterous party.”

The extremist group warned France and its supporters “will remain at the top of the list of targets of the Islamic State.”