Paris attacks: Former French security chief admits massacre may have been 'unstoppable'

The Paris attacks may have been “unstoppable”, the former head of French foreign intelligence has admitted.

Talking to BBC Panorama on Monday night, Pierre Brochand said: “From any standpoint it’s a massive intelligence failure, but what I think is there will be always be failure, because these kinds of attacks are to a certain extent unstoppable.

“We could prevent a lot of them, but not all of them.”

Mr Brochand was speaking three days after the biggest terrorist atrocity to hit Europe in more than a decade.

At least 129 people were killed when Islamist extremists opened fire and set off bombs at six sites around the French capital on Friday evening – including a concert at the Bataclan, where 89 people died.