French president to huddle with Obama

French President François Hollande will visit the U.S. next week to discuss efforts to combat Islamist militants with President Obama, the White House announced Tuesday.

{mosads}Hollande will meet with Obama in the Oval Office on Nov. 24 to discuss “further cooperation” in the anti-terrorism effort, the White House said.

Secretary of State John Kerry announced the meeting earlier Tuesday while in France. Kerry arrived in France on Monday to meet with Hollande and others in a show of solidarity in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris, which left 129 dead and hundreds more injured.

“My sense is that everybody understands that with Lebanon’s attacks, with what’s happened in Egypt, with Ankara, Turkey, with the attacks now in Paris, we have to step up our efforts to hit [terrorists] at the core where they’re planning these things, and also, obviously, to do more on borders and in terms of the movement of people,” Kerry said during brief remarks in Paris on Tuesday.

“Daesh will feel even greater pressure,” Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“Jihadi John is gone, and other top aides are gone,” Kerry told embassy staff in France, referring to Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-born British citizen and ISIS militant targeted in a U.S. airstrike last week.

Kerry said that the U.S.-led coalition has gained territory from the terror group, maintaining, “There is a clear strategy in place, and step by step, I am confident the momentum will pick up.

“We’re slowly marshaling the forces and capacity to be able to change this current dynamic. So hang in there. Stay steady. Stay strong.”

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Hollande would visit Washington and Moscow to push for a single alliance to combat ISIS, Reuters reported.

Both France and Russia staged airstrikes against the group on Tuesday in northern Syria, according to Reuters, a day after Obama called for maintaining the U.S. strategy to defeat the group.

–This report was updated at 11:00 a.m.