French Minister of the Interior Claude Gueant says some Islamist groups in France want to avenge the death of a Muslim radical who the government says was responsible for the killing of seven people in a shooting spree in the country’s south.
Gueant, speaking on French radio Europe 1 on Friday, said that authorities had observed increased “desire” and “enthusiasm” among such groups to avenge the death of Mohammed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian descent, killed in a standoff with police last month.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is facing a tough re-election in a presidential vote, with a first round on April 22, has put security high on his agenda.
Gueant called on the people to be “vigilant and attentive.”
French security agencies are already on edge and have carried out sweeps, detaining 10 people from five cities on Wednesday in the latest roundup. Four of them were released on Thursday after questioning and a judicial official said that the other six would be released late on Friday.
The official was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be named.
On Tuesday, preliminary charges were filed against 13 people who were detained in a raid last week, all members of Forsane Alizza, or Knights of Pride, a recently banned group. Nine of them were jailed. The four others were released, but must report to officials.
Last month’s killings of three paratroopers, a rabbi and three Jewish school children in the Toulouse region in southwest France has shocked the nation. However, Sarkozy has come under criticism for using the raids and expulsions to further his campaign.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion