French police raid homes of dozens of suspected Islamists to send message to ‘enemies of the republic’

People attended a rally in memory of Samuel Paty over the weekend

Credit: Antoine Gyori/Corbis via Getty Images

French police raided the homes of dozens of suspected Islamist militants on Monday as the government moved to ban groups accused of spreading extremism following the beheading of a teacher.

This week the authorities plan to search the premises of more than 51 groups, including NGOs suspected of using campaigns against Islamophobia as a cover for Islamist propaganda.

“Some of these groups will be banned,” said Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister. He added that there would not be “a minute’s respite for the enemies of the Republic."  

The brutality of the killing of Samuel Paty, a history teacher, has shocked a nation already traumatised by terror attacks that have killed more than 240 people in the past five years.

Mr Paty was decapitated by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee, apparently influenced by an online campaign against the teacher for discussing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class about freedom of expression.

Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet as blasphemous.

Emmanuel Macron, the president, who is under pressure from Right- and Left-wing parties to root out extremism, vowed on Sunday: “Islamists will not sleep peacefully in France. Fear will change sides.”

Mr Paty’s family were received by Mr Macron at the Elysée Palace on Monday. The president presented his condolences and offered his support.

The authorities have launched more than 80 investigations into online hate speech and the government plans to tighten social media regulation amid growing public anger that the teacher was targeted online. Social media bosses have been summoned to a meeting at the interior ministry on Tuesday.

Government legislation banning hate posts was overturned by France’s Constitutional Council in June on the grounds that it infringed free speech. The government believes it would have forced social media to remove a video in which Brahim Chnina, the father of a pupil, denounced and identified the teacher. It will now table another version of its bill.

Leaders of France’s main conservative opposition party, The Republicans, are demanding the closure of “radicalised mosques” and the re-introduction of compulsory military service. Mr Macron has restored a form of national service for teenagers but they are not formally enrolled in the military.

Damien Abad, head of the Republican group in the National Assembly, dismissed measures outlined by the centrist president earlier this month to curb “Islamic separatism” by restricting the activities of religious, cultural and sporting groups, and banning home schooling, as “inadequate”.

“We must lance the boil,” he said, proposing school classes on secularity and a ban on special pork-free school dinners for Muslim or Jewish pupils. 

Eleven people arrested after the teacher’s killing may be charged or released today.

Among them is Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a preacher flagged as a suspected radical who befriended Mr Chnina. He is also being held, along with the parents, grandfather and 17-year-old brother of the presumed killer, Abdoulakh Anzorov, who was shot dead by police.

The murder of Mr Paty was the second terrorist attack in the Paris area since the trial began last month of 14 alleged accomplices in the 2015 massacre of 12 people at the office of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo after it published the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Judges at the trial paid homage to Mr Paty on Monday. A national tribute to the teacher will take place on Wednesday.