Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve added, speaking to RTL radio: “Terrorist groups are in the zone. … We know these groups are hostile to Western interests.”
A team from France’s Accident Investigation Bureau has been sent to Mali, Hollande said.
A French Reaper drone based in Niger initially spotted the wreckage, French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier told France-Info radio on Friday. Two helicopter teams also overflew, noting that the wreckage was in a concentrated area. A column of soldiers in some 30 vehicles were dispatched to the site, he said.
“We sent men, with the agreement of the Mali government, to the site, and they found the wreckage of the plane with the help of the inhabitants of the area,” said Gen. Gilbert Diendere, a close aide to Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore and head of the crisis committee set up to investigate the flight.