French President Francois Hollande stated that a bombing at the IMF Paris office and a Grasse school shooting justified maintaining the state of emergency in France.
French President Francois Hollande justified on Thursday maintaining the state of emergency in the country for another four months after a bombing at the IMF Paris office and a Grasse school shooting rattled France.
A parcel exploded earlier in the day at the IMF office in Paris, injuring an employee. Just hours later, a teenager opened fire at a high school in Grasse, wounding a headmaster and two students.
“All this allows me… to justify the state of emergency,” Hollande said in Correze. “It is declared in certain situations due to certain risks, and I think that we must absolutely maintain it until July 15.”
The state of emergency was declared after a series of near-simultaneous gun and bomb attacks in Paris and a truck ramming in Nice claimed over 200 lives last year. It is set to expire in mid-July.
A Greek anarchist group appears to be behind the bombing after they claimed sending a booby-trapped parcel to the German Finance Ministry.