France closes a border crossing with Spain because of the terrorist threat

France has closed a secondary border crossing with Spain, that of the port of Portillon, as part of the measures to intensify checks on entry into the country following the latest wave of terrorist attacks.

Portillon closed on Wednesday from 8pm and for an undetermined period, confirmed on Thursday to Efe sources from the prefecture of the department of Haute-Garonne (government delegation).

In a statement, the prefecture justified it by "the evolution of the terrorist threat" and recalled that the French President, Emmanuel Macron, had decided on 5 November "to intensify very strongly border controls within the Schengen area".

In the Haute-Garonne, this means closing the port of Portillon to vehicles and pedestrians "until further notice".

Instead, the Prefecture reminds that the border can be crossed via Melles-Pont du Roy, which is the natural exit to France from the Aran Valley.

France has suffered a wave of Jihadist terrorism since last September, with an attack in Paris in which two people were injured, the beheading of a teacher in October and the murder of three people in a church in Nice that month.

The perpetrators were foreigners in all three cases, the last being a Tunisian who had entered Europe irregularly via Lampedusa and entered France from Italy without being checked.