France aims to build anti-terror coalition in wake of Paris attacks

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France has gone to war and wants to consolidate the international military response to Islamic State . French President François Hollande announced he would go to Washington and Moscow next week in an attempt to forge a broad anti-terror alliance.

Also on Tuesday, four days after the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 129 people and wounded more than 350, France became the first European Union member to invoke the mutual-defence clause of the EU's Lisbon Treaty. It may be a largely symbolic move: The EU has no standing army and France probably will be offered no more than logistical support.

But Mr. Hollande's actions suggest he wants to seize the moment and try to play a bridging role. He said he would visit U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Nov. 24 and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Nov. 26, shuttle diplomacy that seems to recognize that EU countries alone have little capacity to deliver much military support to Mr. Hollande's war against the Islamic State.

A French presidential source told Reuters that Mr. Hollande also spoke by phone to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who backed calls for a united front against the militants.

The Lisbon Treaty's Article 42 came into force in 2009 and says that if any of the EU's 28 countries "is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other member states shall have an obligation of aid and assistance by all means in their power."

It is broadly similar to Article 5 of the NATO charter, which states that an attack on one NATO member is considered an attack on all the members. It was invoked only once – after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

The EU's Article 42, however, is regarded as little more than symbolic since it is not backed by a military force, is riddled with exemptions – it spares historically neutral countries such as Sweden and Ireland from going on a war footing – and cannot make specific demands for contributions from individual countries.

In this case, France, for instance, cannot demand that Britain send one of its aircraft carriers to join the French aircraft carrier – the Charles de Gaulle – in the eastern Mediterranean, where its fighter-bombers will hit Islamic State targets in Syria. "It's more of a symbolic and political move than an effective move," said Jacques Hubert-Rodier, political commentator at the Paris newspaper Les Echos. "And it's less binding than Article 5 of NATO."

The French government seems to realize the EU common security treaty is not going to deliver warplanes from Germany, Italy and Britain to the skies over Syria. "It is, above all, a political act, taken for the first time," French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the media on Tuesday after meeting with EU defence ministers in Brussels.

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen called the French appeal for help under Article 42 the "basis for consultations" and said "no concrete request or demand" was made of Germany and its military forces.

Still, the article, designed as a forerunner to an eventual EU defence force, is considered a test of EU political unity and, in practical terms, should give France's stretched military a small boost from EU countries, all of which consider terrorism a common threat. The investigation into Friday night's massacres and ensuing security crackdowns have taken on Europe-wide dimensions.

Raids and arrests have been made in Belgium, which appears to have been the staging ground for the Paris attacks. On Tuesday, German police in the town of Aachen, near the Belgian border, arrested seven people in a raid that may have been linked to the attacks. Two men who were charged with terror offences in Belgium admitted to having picked up Salah Abdeslam from Paris and taking him back to Belgium early Saturday morning. Mr. Abdeslam, the suspect of a global manhunt, is linked to the attacks; his brother, Ibrahim, was among the attackers who detonated suicide vests.

As security tightened around Europe, Germany's Hanover stadium was evacuated on Tuesday evening after a suspicious suitcase was found. The friendly soccer match between the German and Dutch teams that was to have taken place at the stadium was cancelled. Volker Kluwe, the head of Hanover police, said they had received "concrete information" that someone was planning to set off explosives inside the stadium shortly after the stadium gates were opened.

On Tuesday, all the EU defence ministers pledged support to France in its anti-terror campaign. While individual contributions are to be negotiated, some countries have already offered specific assistance, such as equipment, logistical support, intelligence sharing and port security, though it's modest.

A few countries offered to take some pressure off France by supporting French peacekeeping missions in Africa. "France cannot do everything in the Sahel, in the Central African Republic, in the Levant and then secure its national territory," Mr. Le Drian said.

But troops and heavy military equipment from EU countries will almost certainly not come France's way. "I don't expect any contribution as far as troops are concerned," Dutch Defence Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said. "France is a big, powerful country and it has its own capacities."

In reality, only Britain and France have the capacity among EU countries to fight foreign wars. British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that he would seek support for military action in Syria, but he may not get it from Parliament. "My firm conviction is that we need to act against ISIL [a common acronym for the Islamic State] in Syria," he told MPs. "There is a compelling case for doing so."

Mr. Obama has made it clear the United States will not deliver ground troops to Syria. While the United States is bombing Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq, it is not subject to the EU's common-security article; and France, a NATO member, did not invoke the alliance's Article 5. Among EU countries, it looks like France will bear the brunt of the military cost of the war on terror.