Almost 80% of Japanese Fear Paris-Style Attacks – Poll

A vast majority of people in Japan fear that Paris-style terror attacks could take place in their country, a new opinion poll released Sunday has found.

TOKYO (Sputnik) — The survey, conducted by Japan’s national Kyodo news agency on Saturday and Sunday, revealed that as many as 79.7 percent of respondents said that what happened in Paris earlier this month could be easily repeated in Japan.

Over a half of those polled, 56.3 percent, said that the Japanese government should have held an emergency security meeting on the heels of the Paris attacks to assess the risks.

A spate of near-simultaneous gun and bomb attacks by Islamist militants took place in the French capital on November 13. A total of 130 people died and over 350 were injured when terrorists, allegedly from the Islamic State extremist group, assaulted restaurants, bars, the Stade de France and the Bataclan concert hall.

Tokyo is due to host Summer Olympic Games in 2020. After the Paris carnage, the Japanese government announced plans to boost security, including opening a center with the Foreign Ministry to collect data on international terrorist networks.