France to keep emergency state till ‘ISIS is defeated’

France will be on a high alert until a “total and global war” against so-called Islamic State (IS) is over, reported Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

The measures were introduced and extended after IS-led Paris attacks on November.

It gives police more power to conduct raids and impose house arrests.

He added that Europe’s migration crisis was now putting the European Union itself at grave risk.

EU countries hope Turkey will help to control the flow of migrants reaching the EU from Syria and other conflict zones.

That’s why German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to hold talks with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Berlin.

Mr Valls announced that “ they will use all means in their democracy under the rule of law to protect French people”.

When asked how long he envisaged the state of emergency remaining, Mr Valls said: “The time necessary. We cannot always live all the time in a state of emergency.”

“As long as the threat is there, we must use all the means,” he said, adding that it should stay in place “until we can get rid of Daesh”, using an acronym for IS.

More than a million migrants, most of them refugees, arrived in Europe last year.

Mr Valls says that Europe could not take in all the refugees fleeing what he called terrible wars in Iraq or Syria.

“Otherwise,” he said, “our societies will be totally destabilised.”

“If Europe is not capable of protecting its own borders, it’s the very idea of Europe that will be questioned.”

Asked about border controls inside Europe which many fear put the passport-free Schengen zone at great risk, Mr Valls said the concept of Europe itself was now in very grave danger.

He did not directly criticise Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel for her welcoming message last year to refugees.

Mr Valls said she “had courage”, but it was clear he believed her message was wrong, our correspondent says.

“A message that says ‘Come, you will be welcome’ provokes major shifts” in population, says Mr Valls.

“Today, when we speak in Europe, a few seconds later it is mainly on the smartphones in the refugee camps.”