THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Police have detained 19 people in a crackdown on suspected Islamist extremists in cities around France on Thursday and more such raids are planned, Nicolas Sarkozy said.
President Sarkozy gave no details about the justifications for the arrests, or what specifically the detainees are suspected of.
"It's in connection with a form of Islamist radicalism," Sarkozy said on Europe-1 radio.
The raids come after a spate of killings in southern France claimed by Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman who espoused radical Islamist views and said he had links to al-Qaeda. Merah was killed in a gunfight with police last week and buried near Toulouse on Thursday. » | AP | Friday, March 30, 2012
