French police raided Islamic associations and foreigners suspected of extremist religious beliefs on Monday, police sources said, three days after a suspected Islamist beheaded a school teacher.
History teacher Samuel Paty, 47, was murdered in broad daylight on Friday in front of his school in a middle-class suburb of Paris by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin, who was shot to death by police. .
The killer tried to avenge his victim’s use of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on freedom of expression for 13-year-olds.
Public figures called the murder an attack on French values.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that some 80 investigations into online hatred were underway and that he was investigating whether to dissolve some 50 associations within the Muslim community.
“Police operations have been carried out and more will follow, involving dozens of people,” the minister told Europe 1.
A police source said France was preparing to deport 213 foreigners who were on a government watch list and suspected of having extreme religious beliefs, among whom about 150 are serving prison terms.
French authorities said they detained 11 people after the murder. Darmanin said they include the father of a student and an Islamist activist who, along with the attacker, “obviously launched a fatwa,” or religious sentence, against the teacher.
A judicial source told Reuters that the man known to intelligence agencies was Abdelhakim Sefriuoi, born in Morocco.
French President Emmanuel Macron held a defense council on Sunday at the Elysee presidential palace. The government will tighten security at schools when classes resume on November 2, Macron’s office said.
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