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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 - Antoine Gyori/Corbis via Getty Images
People attended a rally in memory of Samuel Paty over the weekend - 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.

The authorities plan to search the premises of more than 51 groups this week, 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 brutal murder of Samuel Paty has stunned a nation already traumatised by terror attacks that have killed more than 250 people since 2015.

Mr Paty was decapitated by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee influenced by an online campaign against the history and geography teacher for discussing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a class about freedom of expression. Muslims regard depictions of the prophet as blasphemous.

President Emmanuel Macron, 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 Darmanin on Monday ordered the closure of a mosque in north-eastern Paris suspected of spreading militant Islam.

The authorities have launched more than 80 investigations into online hate speech and people who posted messages of support for the killer, Abdoullakh Anzorov, who was shot dead by police.

The government plans to tighten social media regulation amid growing public anger that the teacher was targeted in what Mr Darmanin described as an “online fatwa”.

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.

Fifteen people have been arrested since the murder, including Mr Chnina and Abdelhakim Sefrioui, a preacher flagged as a suspected radical, and four teenage schoolchildren. Anzorov contacted Mr Chnina and Mr Sefrioui on social media after seeing the video, investigators said.

The presumed killer’s parents, grandfather and 17-year-old brother were also arrested.

A 15-year-old schoolboy taken into custody told investigators Anzorov offered pupils several hundred euros to tell him where to find the teacher. At least one is believed to have accepted the money, but is not thought to have realised what the refugee was planning.

France has ordered the deportation of 231 foreign nationals flagged as Islamist radicals by security services.

Marine Le Pen, the far-Right leader, called for an immediate halt to immigration and the expulsion of all foreigners on terror watchlists.

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.

The teacher’s murder was the second terrorist attack in France 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 controversial cartoons.

The presiding judge at the trial delivered an emotional tribute to Mr Paty on Monday as Mr Macron received his family at the Elysée. He also met Muslim leaders who have condemned the killing.

A national homage will be held on Wednesday.