French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called for the creation of a “real security police” for the external frontiers of the European Union’s Schengen open-border area.
Macron, speaking during a visit to the Spanish border, also announced that police and troop numbers on France’s internal borders with other Schengen states would be doubled from 2,400 to 4,800.
The move comes days after three people were killed in a knife attack in a church in Nice.
According to French and Italian officials, the main suspect is a Tunisian national who arrived in Italy by sea before making his way to France shortly before the attack.
Macron said that while it was too early to be sure of the details of the Nice attack, it was clear that “terrorist attacks can be carried out by people who use migration flows to threaten (France’s) national territory”.
Macron said he would be bringing proposals about a Schengen border police and other measures to strengthen the zone before a European summit in December.
Schengen country interior ministers should be able to meet together “much more effectively and more regularly and decide the shared rules of this space”.
Terrorist networks were becoming ever more globalised and that means that “Europe needs to intensify its response,” Macron insisted. (dpa).
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