France pounds Syria's Raqqa for second night running

France staged a fresh round of airstrikes targeting the Syrian stronghold of Islamic State, on Tuesday night after declaring itself “at war” with the militants behind last week’s deadly attacks in Paris.

Defence Minister Jean Yves le Drian told a French television station on Tuesday night that ten of the country’s fighter jets were pounding Raqqa, a town in northern Syria that has served as a de facto capital for IS since last summer.

Activists inside the city said on Tuesday night that they had heard at least a dozen strikes, and that electricity in the whole north-western area was out.

In a string on tweets on Tuesday morning, activists from the group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said IS fighters would respond to airstrikes by hiding in civilian buildings.

France is stepping up its bombing campaign against IS in the wake of a series of co-ordinated attacks that hit Paris on Friday, killing at least 129 people.

France and Russia will now be co-ordinating militarily - for the first time since World War II – on their anti-IS campaign, it was announced on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, le Drian called on the EU to give it military aid to assist in its fight against IS, invoking for the first time a European treaty on mutual defence signed into force in 2009.