French mourn and hunt for accomplices after police attacked

An elite French police squadron was able to raid the home and rescue the couple’s three-year-old son, who was apparently unharmed, according to statements released by the Interior Ministry and Hollande’s office at the Élysée Palace.

Valls rejected criticism that the authorities could have thwarted the assault.

Monday night’s attack was not the first time police have been targeted by terrorists in France. “We are saving other surprises for you, and for the Euro…”

In the other one, he complained how people were not nice or smiling when he delivered food to them.

The killings took place as France, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State, was already on high alert for terrorist attacks during the Euro 2016 soccer tournament which began on Friday.

Abballa then entered Savaing’s house and stabbed his female companion, a 36-year-old police administrator in the attacker’s hometown, then took their 3-year-old son hostage, Prosecutor Francois Molins said.

Aballa was killed by police after a three-hour standoff.

In 13 minutes of footage shot at the home of his victims, Larossi Abballa announced that he had killed a policeman and his wife, said Thomson, author of a book on young French radicals.

More recently, he was investigated in connection with a network recruiting jihadists to fight in Syria. Late on Monday a policeman and his wife were slain at their home by what authorities said was an Islamist-inspired man wielding a knife.

The actions of a lone terrorist are “the most hard to detect”, Valls said regarding Abballa, who swore allegiance three weeks ago to the head of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Abballa, a 25-year-old from the nearby suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie, told police negotiators before his death that he had sworn loyalty to IS three weeks earlier.

The video was edited, and the victims do not appear.

Three men arrested this week for links to Abballa were still in custody on Wednesday, prosecution sources said.

He received a three-year sentence on September 30, 2013, including a six-month suspended sentence.

But Valls ruled out the idea as “dangerous”.

Abballa had been under phone surveillance since February, but nothing indicated he was planning an attack.

“More innocents will lose their lives”, he said.

Amnesty International France also condemned the suggestion that the “fundamental freedom” to protest could be curtailed, calling for an independent inquiry into violent flare-ups at recent demonstrations. Abballa said in a message posted about 18 hours before the attack.

Hollande said France was facing a terror threat “of a very large scale”.