European capitals tightened security on Friday ahead of New Year's celebrations, erecting concrete barriers in city centers and boosting police numbers after the Islamic State attack in Berlin last week that killed 12 people.
In the German capital, police closed the Pariser Platz square in front of the Brandenburg Gate and prepared to deploy 1,700 extra officers, many along a party strip where armored cars will flank concrete barriers blocking off the area.
In Milan, where police shot the man dead, security checks were set up around the main square. Trucks were banned from the centers of Rome and Naples. Police and soldiers cradled machine guns outside tourists’ sites including Rome's Colosseum.
Madrid plans to deploy an extra 1,600 police on the New Year weekend. For the second year running, access to the city's central Puerta del Sol square, where revelers traditionally gather to bring in the New Year, will be restricted to 25,000 people, with police setting up barricades to control access.
In Cologne in western Germany, where hundreds of women were sexually assaulted and robbed outside the central train station on New Year's Eve last year, police have installed new video surveillance cameras to monitor the station square.
In Frankfurt, home to the European Central Bank and Germany's biggest airport, more than 600 police officers will be on duty on New Year's Eve, twice as many as in 2015.
In Brussels, where Islamist suicide bombers killed 16 people and injured more than 150 in March, the mayor was reviewing whether to cancel New Year fireworks, but decided this week that they would go ahead.
In Paris, where Islamic State gunmen killed 130 people last November, authorities prepared for a high-security weekend, the highlight of which will be the fireworks on the Avenue des Champs-lyses, where some 600,000 people are expected.
Ahead of New Year's Eve, heavily armed soldiers patrolled popular Paris tourist sites such as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre museum.
In the Paris metropolitan area, 10,300 police, gendarmes, soldiers, firemen and other personnel will be deployed, police said, fewer than the 11,000 in 2015 just weeks after the Nov. 13 attack at the Bataclan theatre.
Searches and crowd filtering will be carried out by private security agents, particularly near the Champs-lyses where thousands of people are expected, authorities said.
Across France, more than 90,000 police including 7,000 soldiers will be on duty for New Year's Eve, authorities said.
REUTERS
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