COPS MOVE VS ISLAMISTS IN FRANCE AFTER TEACHER’S BEHEADING

Following the beheading of a history teacher in France last week, numerous police operations against Islamists were ongoing, Julia Naue reported for the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa). 

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that they were targeting "dozens of people" with links to radical Islam. The police operations would continue for the coming days, he added. In addition, Darmanin said he would propose a ban on two groups hostile to the republic. 

In the French Defense Council, chaired by President Emmanuel Macron, it was decided on Sunday evening to take stronger action against radicalization and also to focus more on hate speech on the internet. The minister said that around 80 complaints against the spread of hatred on the internet had been filed since the teacher's murder relating to news that glorified the beheading of the teacher. The main suspect, who is 18 years old, had boasted about the killing on the internet and wrote that the educator had disparaged the prophet Mohammed. Police killed him when he refused to surrender. 

Darmanin also announced that the operations would be focusing on a number of associations this week. There has been criticism in France that no protective measures were put in place over threats made against the school. "Every teacher in France must be supported if they find themselves in this kind of situation," Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said.