France carried out a fresh round of air strikes in Iraq Thursday as it renewed its determination to fight ISIL ’ jihadists’ after the beheading of hostage Herve Gourdel.

France carried out a fresh round of air strikes in Iraq Thursday as it renewed its determination to fight ISIL ' jihadists' after the beheading of hostage Herve Gourdel.

President Francois Hollande pledged "determination, composure and vigilance" in the face of 'jihadi' threats at a cabinet meeting and announced that flags nationwide would be flown at half-mast for three days from Friday to mourn the loss of the 55-year-old mountaineer.

"Faced with this threat, we need national unity," he told the meeting, according to government spokesman Stephane Le Foll, who also announced France had carried out air strikes in restive Iraq on Thursday morning -- the second in the space of a week.

Paris has six Rafale fighter jets and just under 1,000 soldiers based in the United Arab Emirates, and on Friday carried out its first air strike on ISIL targets in Iraq, destroying a logistics depot.

As the cabinet meeting ended, Hollande went straight into crisis defense talks during which, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said, "everything would be looked at again," including "what we want to do in Iraq and what will happen in Syria."

France has vowed to conduct aerial operations against ISIL in Iraq but has stressed it will not deploy ground troops, nor will it expand operations to Syria, as the United States has done.

US, Saudi and Emirati warplanes bombed oil installations in eastern Syria overnight in a bid to cut off a significant source of funding for the ISIL group.

However, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian seemed to open the door to possible action in neighboring Syria, telling French radio on Thursday it was "a question that had to be asked."

Nevertheless, the minister stressed it was "an opportunity that is not on the table today. We have an important task to carry out in Iraq."