Overview
- French diplomats in London ran a crisis management drill at the Knightsbridge embassy to rehearse a response to a major attack.
- The blueprint would put France’s Crisis and Support Centre in Paris, known as CDCS, in charge of flying in staff, issuing emergency travel papers, and arranging repatriation flights.
- Consular teams would work with UK authorities and support French nationals in Britain, where officials count about 300,000 citizens.
- UK counter-terror leaders report a sharper threat picture, citing a 50% rise in National Security Act cases in six months, hostile state surveillance, 20 disrupted plots, and recent attempted attacks on the Iranian diaspora.
- UK and French leaders are preparing a Paris summit to design a defensive plan to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, and Russia’s defence ministry separately published claims naming UK sites as potential targets.