After the brutal beheading of Samuel Paty, a 47-year-old history teacher by an Islamist in France, 231 radicalised foreign nationals in a sweeping crackdown have been expelled, Reuters reported.
France Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin said that the government has plans to carry out the expulsion swiftly in response to the killing of Samuel Paty who had shown the cartoons of Mohammad that had been published in the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo.
French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the act as an “Islamist terrorist attack” and had defended the right to blasphemy.
Earlier this month, President Macron had unveiled a plan to defend France’s secular values against Islamist radicalism, and had stated, “Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, we are not just seeing this in our country,”.
France defines extremists as “people who, engaged in a process of radicalisation, are likely to want to go abroad to join terrorist groups or take part in terrorist activities”.
After this brutal murder, 231 foreigners in the File of Alerts for the Prevention of Terrorist Attacks (FSPRT) will be deported. As per reports released by the French government, 180 people are currently in prison and 51 are expected to be arrested in the next few hours. Also, more than 850 illegal immigrants are registered to the FSPRT.
Macron has also announced that his government will be presenting a bill in December to strengthen a 1905 law that officially separated church and state.
This step will ensure that France as a nation will maintain its neutrality on religion. In a speech to the nation, Macron emphasised that “no concessions” would be made in a new drive to push religion out of education and the public sector in France.
Macron went on to say that France would seek to “liberate” Islam in France from foreign influences. This will be done by improving oversight of the financing of mosques and closer scrutiny of schools and associations exclusively serving religious communities, he stated.
In January 2015, the staff of Charlie Hebdo was massacred and the government described it as an act of “Islamist terrorism”. Right now 14 perpetrators, who are charged with various crimes including supplying weapons, membership of a terrorist organisation, and financing terrorism are on trial.