Macron creates new counter-terrorism task force; Notre Dame attacker identified

France created a new counter-terrorism task force on Wednesday, bringing together all the intelligence services, to coordinate the response to attacks, a day after an Algerian student assaulted police officers outside Notre Dame cathedral.

Newly elected President Emmanuel Macron, portrayed by rivals as weak on security during the presidential campaign, ordered the task force to be set up last month to steer France's multiple security agencies from his Elysee Palace offices.

The performance of France's intelligence services has come under close scrutiny since the November 2015 attacks on Paris, when militant gunmen and suicide bombers struck entertainment venues across the capital, killing

130 people.

In total, more than 230 people have been killed in a wave of attacks in France either claimed by or inspired by Islamic State over the past two-and-a-half years. In Tuesday's attack, a 40-year-old Algerian student armed with a hammer and kitchen knives shouted "this is for Syria" as he struck at and wounded a policeman, before being shot by police officers.

A source close to the investigation named the assailant as Algerian-born Farid Ikken, a PhD student of communications registered since 2014 at a university in the eastern city of Metz. The source said that a video in which Ikken pledged allegiance to Islamic State had been found in his flat in Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris, during a police raid on Tuesday evening, after the attack