France responded to a threat by Isil on Monday to kill "spiteful and filthy French" in retaliation for air strikes by saying it was "not afraid" and would protect its citizens, reports The Telegraph.
In a brief televised address hours after the terrorist group posted the threat online, the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said everything possible was being done to protect French citizens from terrorist attacks.
France became the first US ally to join air strikes against IS last week.
"France is not afraid because it is prepared to respond to their threats," Mr Cazeneuve declared, adding that the French security services had been fully mobilised to prevent attacks by groups active in Syria and Iraq for several months.
The authorities, he said, were "taking 100 per cent precautions" and were "ready to stop actions even if there is no such thing as zero risk."
"We must eliminate the risk posed by Isil to our security ... The barbarity of these terrorists justifies that we combat them without respite," he said.
He spoke after an audio statement by an Isil spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, appeared online in Arabic, with brief translations in English, French and Hebrew.
"If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian or any other disbeliever ... including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him," it said.
Isil has released a number of French hostages; the French government has strenuously denied paying ransoms. French ex-hostages who were held with others who were beheaded said American and British captives had been singled out for harsh treatment.
France, which opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq a decade ago, has joined the US in launching air strikes partly because of fears that hundreds of French jihadists in Syria and Iraq may return to Europe to launch attacks.
Mehdi Nemmouche, a French national who went to Syria and was one of the captors of foreign hostages, now faces trial for murdering four people in an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May after his return.
Read more of this report from The Telegraph.