Major attacks in Europe 'a certainty'

More major attacks in Europe are a "certainty", French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told an audience at the Munich Security Conference yesterday.

"We have entered -- we all feel it -- in a new era characterised by the lasting presence of 'hyper-terrorism'," said Valls, whose country was hit by two Islamist attacks last year.

"We must be fully conscious of the threat, and react with a very great force and great lucidity. There will be attacks. Large-scale attacks. It's a certainty. This hyper-terrorism is here to stay," he said.

Valls was speaking at the three-day security conference in the southern German city, speaking alongside Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

"The force of the ideological fascination is formidable, and if we have changed era it is because this hyper-terrorism is in the heart of our societies."

Meanwhile, the mass influx of refugees and other migrants into Europe spells a "near existential threat" to the continent, US Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday.

"The United States understands the near existential nature of this threat to the politics and fabric of life in Europe," he said at the Munich Security Conference.