richard lister, bbc news. >> so in this unfolding story, the focus right now is on dammartin where hundreds of armed police are surrounding that industrial estate but frankly, the whole of france is on alert right now. we believe between 80 and 90,000 police and security forces mobilized in a massive nationwide security operation. we can cross live now to paris, join christian frazier, who's been monitoring events in the french capital over the past few hours. christian, president holland made a point of going to the interior ministry to issue his statement. do you get the feeling that the french government feels that it is right now on top of this unfolding story? >> i don't think they'd be bold enough to say that stephen, given that the third gunman is in the wind and a link being established between him and the two brothers holed up in dammartin. but certainly president hollande wants to look like the commander in chief and he's been striding across the road from the elysee palace, to the interior ministry, where he's been keeping up to date with events and fast-moving events as they hap

richard lister bbc news. >> reporter: this morning, president hollande interrupted a crisis meeting he was sitting in on to get up-to-date news of what was happening on the n2 and from that moment he marched across the road from the elysee palace to sit in on what was coming in from the police on the ground and he's still there being kept abreast of the situation. around dammartin, it is a ring of steel at the moment, so journalists are being moved around. they're trying to set up a cordon as wide as they can around the village to stop people getting in, but a few minutes ago, colleague david eades spoke to chris morris who is on the ground there to give us the latest situation. >> reporter: well ideally for the police they would have liked to have cornered the two suspects in an isolated rural location 20 miles north of here where they were searching yesterday, there is thick woodland. that would have been the idea place i think for them to have tracked them down. but what happened this morning was they break cover, stole a car and drove down here towards paris, and now they are in th