France’s Prime Minister said on Friday he was “open” to a temporary ban on foreign financing for mosque building, after a spate of attacks in the country claimed by jihadists.
France’s Prime Minister said on Friday he was “open” to a temporary ban on foreign financing for mosque building, after a spate of attacks in the country claimed by jihadists.
Manuel Valls also admitted in an interview with the Le Monde daily it was a “failure” that one of the jihadists who attacked a church and killed a priest earlier this week had been released with an electronic tag pending trial.
Mr Valls and interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve have come under fire for perceived security failings that have failed to prevent three major terror attacks in France in 18 months.
The fact that one of the church attackers, 19-year-old Adel Kermiche, was awaiting trial on terror charges and had been fitted with an electronic tag meant judges needed to take a “different, case-by-case, approach,” Mr Valls said.
However, the Prime Minister stressed that the judges in this individual case should not be held responsible for this “act of terrorism.”
And as the jihadist kill-ing of a priest at the altar of his church sparked fears of religious tensions in secular France, Mr Valls said the country needed to forge “a new relationship” with Islam.
“We need to reset and invent a new relationship with Islam in France,” Mr Valls said.
He added he was “open to the idea that — for a period yet to be determined — there should be no financing from abroad for the construction of mosques.”
Meanwhile, a jihadist involved in the brutal killing of an elderly priest pledged to attack France in a newly released video, as Catholic bishops called for a day of prayer in a nation shaken by the latest assault.
The assailant has been named as 19-year-old Abdel Malik Petitjean, who was listed in June on France’s “Fiche S” system of people posing a potential threat to national security after he tried to reach Syria from Turkey.
Petitjean threatened Fra-nce and directly addressed President Francois Holla-nde and PM Manuel Valls in the footage released by the Islamic State-linked Amaq news agency.
Dressed in a striped T-shirt, Petitjean speaks mostly in French, but uses some Arabic phrases, and appears to be filming in a home. Petitjean had been harder to identify than his accomplice Adel Kermiche.
