France to bolster security following terror scare in Britain

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said yesterday that France will bolster security following the terror scares in Britain.

"It is obvious that France, like a number of other countries, is a potential target of terrorism," she told reporters following a top-level security meeting. She said France had not received any specific threats.

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A decision to maintain the danger alert at its current level, the second highest, was made at the meeting which brought together the top representatives of the national police, the counter-intelligence agency, border police and others.

President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a note to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Saturday saying that, "in this implacable fight against terrorism, our countries are not only unfailingly united but also in close and constant cooperation."

France was the target of a deadly wave of attacks in the mid-1990s by Islamic extremists linked to an insurgency in Algeria.