(AFP) Former French president Francois Hollande on Wednesday told the trial held over the November 2015 Paris terror attacks he had no regrets about ordering airstrikes against the Islamic State group, which the assailants claimed as justification for the bloodshed.
Hollande, who was president from 2012 to 2017, also said that while the government knew further attacks were being planned after the massacre of a group of cartoonists in January 2015, “we did not know where, when and how they would strike.”
A 10-man jihadist cell evaded detection to carry out the worst attacks in France’s post-war history on the night of November 13, 2015.
Hollande was attending a France-Germany football friendly at the Stade de France stadium in Paris when the first suicide bomber detonated his vest, prompting security agents to whisk him away as two more blasts went off.
