Airstrikes against ISIS (file)
Airstrikes against ISIS (file)Reuters

French lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved continuing air strikes against Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls urged parliament to extend the operation saying "our mission is not over...we are faced with a war against terrorism."

While the vote is routine, and is required to extend any French military intervention after four months, it comes as the country is in mourning after being struck on home soil in a series of bloody jihadist attacks that left 17 murdered last week.

France joined the coalition in September and has carried out a handful of strikes on the terrorists, but has not joined the United States in its air war against ISIS in Syria, where there is a question regarding the breach of the civil war-embroiled country's sovereign airspace.

President Francois Hollande said last December the country's action had "allowed indisputable progress, and military, and therefore political, success."

Lawmakers agreed to extend the operation 488 for, one against and with 13 abstentions, with political consensus reinforced after the attacks in Paris, first on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo where 12 were murdered, then on a kosher supermarket where four Jews were murdered. A policewoman was also separately gunned down by one of the Islamist attackers.