Macron says Islamists who hit Russia had tried to attack France

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that the gunmen who killed 137 people in a concert hall outside Moscow were part of an Islamic State branch that was behind foiled attempts to attack France over the past few months.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that the gunmen who killed 137 people in a concert hall outside Moscow were part of an Islamic State branch that was behind foiled attempts to attack France over the past few months.

This explains why the French government on Sunday increased the country's security alert to its highest level, Macron and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said. More soldiers will be put on standby and ready to patrol sensitive sites, including schools.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for Friday's Moscow attack.

Russia, which has challenged assertions by the United States that the Islamic State militant group orchestrated the mass shooting in Moscow, continued on Monday to suggest Ukraine was to blame. Macron said this was "cynical and counterproductive."

"This attack was claimed by Islamic State," Macron said, "and the information available to us, to our (intelligence) services as well as to our main partners, indicates indeed that it was an entity of the Islamic State which instigated and carried out this attack.

"This specific group ... had over the past months carried out several (attack) attempts on our soil," he added. Attal later said these included a foiled planned attack on the city of Strasbourg, in eastern France.

"The claim of responsibility for the (Moscow) attack by a branch of Islamic State that planned attacks in European countries including France prompted us to increase the Vigipirate (security threat assessment) to its highest level," Attal said, speaking from a Paris train station.