France has mobilised 115,000 security personnel in the wake of Friday’s Paris attacks by Islamist militants, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has said.
Cazeneuve said 128 more raids on suspected militants were carried out. French air strikes also hit Islamic State in Syria overnight.
IS has said it carried out the attacks on bars, restaurants, a concert hall and a stadium in which 129 people died.
A huge manhunt is under way for one of the suspects, Salah Abdeslam.
He is believed to have fled across the border to his native Belgium. Belgian police have released more pictures of the wanted man.
Belgium’s government has raised its terror threat level because of the failure so far to arrest Abdeslam. Tuesday’s football match between the national team and Spain has been cancelled as a result.
Cazeneuve said: “We have mobilised 115,000 police, gendarmes and military over the whole of our national territory to insure the protection of French people.”
The interior minister added that 128 raids on suspected Islamist militants had been carried out overnight on Monday to Tuesday. More than 160 raids were made earlier on Monday, with 23 people arrested and dozens of weapons seized, reports the BBC.
French media reported that during raids police found a safe house used by the attackers in Bobigny, a suburb of Paris.
Meanwhile France has evoked a clause in the Treaty on European Union obliging other member states to provide it with “aid and assistance by all means in their power”.
The measures came as US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Paris. Speaking on Monday outside the US embassy, he described IS as “psychopathic monsters”.
He called France America’s oldest friend and first ally, and said the only response to the attacks must be a fierce sense of solidarity.
French President Francois Hollande is due to fly to Washington and Moscow next week for talks with US and Russian leaders.
