Paris attacks: Facts won’t faze Francois Hollande’s opponents

French authorities are treating Friday’s atrocity in Paris as an ­ongoing incident. With troops ­deployed across central France, borders sealed and police and military checkpoints on many streets, the country is in a state of siege.

Links are beginning to emerge between the Paris attackers and possible terror cells in Belgium and Germany, along with a paramilitary underground linked to French jihadists in Syria.

The ­situation is fluid and tense, and ­information is constantly changing. That means we still can’t be certain of much, and a lot of what we think we know, through early reports, may turn out to be wrong.

That said, we know enough to put these attacks in context. Several key points emerge.

First, and most important, Friday night’s attacks on the Bataclan theatre, the Stade de France and a string of other locations in central Paris make this is the worst terrorist attack in French history.

Somewhere between eight and 10 attackers, operating in pairs and carrying assault rifles, explosives or grenades and wearing suicide vests, launched a military-style ­assault, beginning with diversionary attacks on random citizens in the street (much as in the 2008 Mumbai attacks and in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack in January).

Those who ­detonated their vests as police assaulted the Bataclan theatre — along with the ­suicide bombers outside State de France — also make this the first suicide bombing in France.

More broadly, this is the worst violence in France’s capital since the Resistance guerillas fought Nazi occupiers during the liberation of Paris in August 1944, and the first time a curfew and state of emergency has been declared in France since the end of WWII.

These are also the most severe terrorist attacks in continental ­Europe since the al-Qa’ida-linked train bombings in March 2004 in Madrid, which killed 191 — given the toll in Paris already stands at 128 killed and more than 800 wounded, with 80 or more critical, this will almost certainly rise over the next few days.

If it exceeds ­Madrid, this would be the worst ­jihadist attack in Europe ever — or, we should say, so far.

Islamic State has claimed res­ponsibility for the attack in a statement over the weekend, saying that it was in retaliation for French actions in Syria and Libya, with the targets carefully selected ahead of time for maximum disruptive impact and to punish “perverts” and “idolaters” — otherwise known as football fans, restaurant diners and concertgoers peacefully going about their business.

Islamic State supporters have threatened follow-on attacks, and given the sophistication and synchronisation of this attack authorities in France, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Britain are taking that threat very seriously.

More disturbingly, Friday night’s attacks happened despite significantly heightened security in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo and Porte de Vincennes massacres in January, and ahead of the COP21 climate talks due to begin in Paris in just over a ­fortnight.

This enhanced security presence proved unable to detect or prevent the attacks, though it does seem to have contributed to a rapid police and military response when they did occur.

The attacks are also taking place against the background of a massive, unprecedented influx of asylum-seekers from Syria and elsewhere into Europe.

While there’s no proven link, as yet, ­between the attackers and anyone associated with the flow of refugees, French intelligence officials say that at least one of the ­attackers entered the EU from Syria via Greece, one of the principal asylum-seeker routes.

It’s possible other attackers were able to infiltrate the country under cover of the migrant crisis that has massively overstretched border security and protection agencies since earlier this year.

This is firmly in the category of things we don’t (and can’t) yet know, so it’s premature to draw too many conclusions from any asylum-seeker link.

But that won’t stop President Francois Hollande’s political ­opponents from doing so.

Hollande has been looking politically shaky for some time, and although his term as President has 18 months to run — he’s up for re-election in 2017 — the attacks will strengthen Marine Le Pen and the right wing of her anti-immigrant National Front, ahead of regional elections scheduled for the first week of next month.

This will further weaken Hollande, and fuel an emerging pan-European backlash against the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, many of them military-age Muslim males.

We can therefore expect greater conflict among European far-right groups, more moderate anti-­immigration parties and the ­centre-left over coming months.

There will likely be criticism in the US for President Barack Obama’s overly positive take on Islamic State — less than 24 hours before the attack, he told CNN that the terrorist group was “contained” — but, more important, cities across the world, from ­Europe to North America to ­Australia, were considering security in the light of this newly emerging and highly capable urban terrorism threat.

The most urgent threat is in ­Europe, which shares via ­Turkey a de facto land border with the ­Syrian conflict and is easily ­accessible to European citizens wishing to return and attack. But cities in the US, Canada and Australia are also at risk.

The military-style “urban guerilla” and “urban siege” tactics — which echo both the ­methodology of the 2008 Mumbai attack and the techniques used in Libya, North Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq over recent years, and in ­Israel for even longer — are also worthy of detailed examination.

The explosion of electronic connectivity since the beginning of the century enables remote radicalisation and nimble command-and-control of distributed attacks, and enables groups like Islamic State to inspire and direct attacks without having to smuggle people or weapons internationally.

As Europe braces for possible follow-on ­attacks, the gruesome and heartbreaking task of ­clean-up continues in Paris.

Former army officer David Kilcullen is a counter-insurgency and intelligence expert.