France is setting up a new National Guard to “protect its citizens” amid the spate of terror attacks that have roiled the country, President Francois Hollande announced Thursday.
Hollande said parliamentary consultations about creating the Guard would begin in September “so that this force can be created as fast as possible to protect the French,” Agence France-Presse reported.
The government has come under fire for alleged security and intelligence lapses, most recently when two jihadists stormed into a church in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, took hostages and butchered an elderly prieston Tuesday.
It emerged that both attackers were on the radar of intelligence services, and had tried to go to Syria to join ISIS.
Two weeks earlier, Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel killed 84 people and wounded over 300 in a Bastille Day truck rampage in Nice.
After the Nice massacre, Hollande announced that thousands of reservists would be called up to boost weary security forces after 18 months of heightened alert and relentless attacks.
The government urged all able-bodied volunteers to come forward with the goal of boosting the current 28,000 reservists by 12,000, The Local reported.
About 2,500 have already answered the call, according to the Interior Ministry.