PARIS (AP) — A French parliamentary investigation found multiple intelligence failures before the Islamic extremist attacks that killed 147 people in Paris last year, lawmakers said Tuesday, urging the creation of a U.S.-style counterterrorism agency to better prevent further violence. All the extremists involved in the 2015 attacks — on newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a kosher market, the national stadium, Parisian cafes and the Bataclan concert hall — had been previously flagged to authorities, said conservative legislator Georges Fenech, who headed the investigation commission. Pietrasanta noted that the attack that killed 49 people in Orlando, Florida, shows that "there is no zero risk," and said France remains under threat even if it overhauls its intelligence services. The parliamentary report is based on six months of interviews with nearly 200 people and visits to Turkey, Greece, Belgium and Europol police agency headquarters in The Hague, as well as to the United States and other destinations. The lawmakers said security measures put in place after the attacks were ineffective, and accused Belgian authorities of being slow to stop the only surviving member of the Paris attack team, Salah Abdeslam, now in isolation in a French prison.
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