YAOUNDE/DAKAR (Reuters) - Islamist militants from neighboring Nigeria abducted a French family of seven, including four children, in northern Cameroon on Tuesday, French President Francois Hollande said.

The risk of attacks on French nationals and interests in Africa has risen since France sent forces into Mali last month to help oust Islamist rebels occupying the country's north.

"They (French family) have been taken by a terrorist group that we know and that is in Nigeria," Hollande told reporters during a visit to Greece.

The men on motorcycles, armed with Kalashnikovs, intercepted the family in their car at 0700 GMT and forced them to drive to the nearby Nigerian border, an aide to the governor of the province told Reuters. The four-wheel-drive vehicle was later found abandoned.

Islamist radicals in northern Nigeria now pose the biggest threat to stability in Africa's top oil-producing state.

Western governments are concerned that Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists may link up with groups elsewhere in a region with poorly secured borders, especially al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM given the conflict in nearby Mali.

The seven French nationals were abducted in Dabanga about 10 km (six miles) from the Nigerian border near the Waza national park, where they had spent the night in the extreme north of Cameroon, an area where Westerners often go for holidays.

The parents of the family, which included two boys and two girls as well as another relative, worked for French utility firm GDF Suez.

GDF, which is building a liquefied natural gas project in south Cameroon, confirmed one of its employees and his family had been kidnapped while on holiday.

Cameroon state radio reported that witnesses said the three adults had been separated from the four children and Cameroonian defense forces had been deployed to the area.

It was the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony.

"I see the hand of Boko Haram in that part of Cameroon. France is in Mali, and it will continue until its mission is completed," Hollande said.

the_ripper2: Send the drones already to Kano, Borno and yobe. These abokis are becoming more daring by the day.

the_ripper2: Send the drones already to Kano, Borno and yobe. These abokis are becoming more daring by the day.

the_ripper2: Send the drones already to Kano, Borno and yobe. These abokis are becoming more daring by the day.

the_ripper2: Send the drones already to Kano, Borno and yobe. These abokis are becoming more daring by the day.

DheBuck:
I weep for your family...and this one is somebody's child o
smh

bobbydbobo: Here's wats happening nd wats gna happen.: The west, under wide nd secretive consultation are looking for an opportunity to burst Nigerias bubble, so they say, let's find a reason to get there, nd like they do wen it comes to other nations, they send a black ops team, for a clandestine operation, they kidnap their own pple, nd play under the pretext that it is boko haram, cos any reasonable man wld biliv that cos that's the most reasonable thing to biliv in the circumstance. Nd then they decide to work with the nigerian govt nd hereby deploy their troops, assert their stations, form a black site somewhere all for what? To monitor our govt, dictate through neo-colonialist means, nd also ensure a free flow of oil for the next American Generation., I said "American gen." because they are our First "friends"in times like that so theyld come up first nd welld welcome them wiv open hands... Ohhh, I love America... Asserting their power cos they are worthy of it..... I'm still waiting for that person who will come here to make a comment nd say I watch too many movies, nd illd laugh at such folly.....

tyson55: With the incessant kidnapping of western national, It won't be long before the drones start flying across Northern Nigeria.