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French President Emmanuel Macron will host the Austrian chancellor for talks on Tuesday before a video summit with other EU leaders to discuss a joint response to recent terrorist attacks carried out by radical Islamists.
Macron and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz will be joined in a phone call by the leaders of Germany and the European Commission among others, the French presidency said.
The meeting comes a week after a gunman killed four people in a shooting rampage in the heart of Vienna, an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
The bloodshed in the Austrian capital followed last month’s attack on a church in Nice and the beheading of a teacher near Paris.
Some of the participants in Tuesday’s video call will take questions during an online news conference afterwards, Macron’s office said.
Last week, the French president called for a rethink of Europe’s open-border Schengen area, including a more robust protection of the zone’s external frontiers.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)