French President Francois Hollande called on Wednesday, Aug 20, for an international conference on ways of tackling Islamic State insurgents who have seized control of territory in Iraq and Syria.

"We can no longer keep to the traditional debate of intervention or non-intervention," Hollande told Le Monde newspaper, according to Reuters.

"We have to come up with a global strategy to fight this group, which is structured, has significant financing, very sophisticated weapons and threatens countries like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon," he said.