PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that the threat posed by Russia’s shadow operations was growing across Europe, and he had ordered measures to protect France’s critical infrastructure from increasing Russian “hybrid attacks”.

“The Russian hybrid threat against Europeans and against France has intensified,” he said after a meeting with French political leaders, before he heads to the UN General Assembly next week.

France’s interior minister had met regional prefects to step up “vigilance in response to the Russian hybrid attacks”, Macron said after the meeting with presidential hopefuls and party leaders ahead of next year’s election.

He said he had ordered “the government to prepare a plan to protect our critical infrastructure” and the “most sensitive” defense industry and technology sites against drone and cyber-attacks.

The French president said that despite the Russian threats France would continue to support Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion of the pro-Western country in February 2022.

He also vowed that France would respond to Russia’s shadow attacks.

“This will not go unanswered,” Macron said, without elaborating.

“The intention behind it is to intimidate us and to derail the effort to support the Ukrainians. The consequence will be the opposite,” he added.

“We are not intimidated, because we know that what is at stake today in Ukraine is our security.”