France suffered renewed attack when Islamist cyber assaults hit nearly 20,000 French websites.
Several French news websites were forced offline on Friday morning, including Le Parisien and L’Express.
The server for six of those sites wrote there had been an incident on its infrastructure, admitting that the problem had hit the “heart of the network”.
L"Express wrote: "Our site is down, like the other sites hosted in the same place. We cannot confirm it is a cyberattack for now."
It could not be verified if the attacks were mounted by terrorists, but the day after authorities said hackers, some well-known Islamic groups, had hit a range of websites in recent days, including military regiments.
Admiral Arnaud Coustilliere, head of cyberdefence for the French military, said: "What's new, what's important, is that this is 19,000 sites – that's never been seen before. This is the first time that a country has been faced with such a large wave."
Among the groups suspected of launching the attacks, French officials named MECA: Middle East Cyber Army, Fallaga team and Cyber Caliphate.
