PARIS (Reuters) - France’s interior minister described Wednesday’s deadly car bomb explosion at an army camp in Gao, northern Mali, as a “major and highly symbolic attack” in an area visited days ago by French President Francois Hollande.

The comment came from Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux, who spoke to reporters shortly after news of the explosion with a provisional death toll of 25.

France sent troops to Mali at the request of the government there in early 2013 to prevent an advance by Islamist rebels on the capital Bamako.