France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday that the devastating November 2015 Paris attacks had "not gone unpunished" after the Islamic State group was expelled from its Syrian stronghold Raqa.
"I was very moved by this victory -- which has not been achieved definitively, but is under way -- because everyone knows that it was from Raqa that the orders came, the decisions were made, the perpetrators of the attacks in France came," Le Drian said on a visit to Madrid.
"So the crimes of the Bataclan have not gone unpunished," he said in reference to the concert venue where IS jihadists massacred 90 concert-goers on November 13, 2015.
In total 130 people were killed across Paris that night in a series of shootings and bombings claimed by IS, part of a wave of attacks in France that have left more than 240 people dead since 2015.
France is part of the international coalition that backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the battle for Raqa.
Speaking at a press conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis, Le Drian called for "a forum to prepare the political transition and political solution of a Syria that we want to unify and not see torn apart".
He called for urgent humanitarian aid for "50,000 to 60,000 people who have not left" Raqa, adding that France was sending 10 million euros to fund de-mining operations and humanitarian aid.
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Friday that the devastating November 2015 Paris attacks had “not gone unpunished” after the Islamic State group was expelled from its Syrian stronghold Raqa.
“I was very moved by this victory — which has not been achieved definitively, but is under way — because everyone knows that it was from Raqa that the orders came, the decisions were made, the perpetrators of the attacks in France came,” Le Drian said on a visit to Madrid.
“So the crimes of the Bataclan have not gone unpunished,” he said in reference to the concert venue where IS jihadists massacred 90 concert-goers on November 13, 2015.
In total 130 people were killed across Paris that night in a series of shootings and bombings claimed by IS, part of a wave of attacks in France that have left more than 240 people dead since 2015.
France is part of the international coalition that backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the battle for Raqa.
Speaking at a press conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis, Le Drian called for “a forum to prepare the political transition and political solution of a Syria that we want to unify and not see torn apart”.
He called for urgent humanitarian aid for “50,000 to 60,000 people who have not left” Raqa, adding that France was sending 10 million euros to fund de-mining operations and humanitarian aid.
