Paris, Oct 4: The French government unveiled Wednesday a bill that will outlaw visits to terrorist training camps as part of the country's crackdown on surging terrorist threats, a government statement said.
The legislation presented by Interior Minister Manuel Valls at a weekly cabinet meeting will allow police to arrest and question suspects “who participated in terrorist training camps abroad even though they have not committed any offences in French territory”.
”The terrorist threat remains at a high level in France. It is essential that we can detect when people—collectively or individually—embark on the road to radicalisation and terrorist violence,” Valls' statement said, reported Xinhua.
The government will also extend to 2015 a measure that enables police to access private electronic communications of potential terrorists. A decision to make it apply indefinitely would be announced later in the year, the statement added.
French officials toughened measures to fight terrorism after Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old Al Qaida-inspired gunman, killed seven people, including three children, in Toulouse and Montauban in the south France in March. Reports said he had made several suspected visits to terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
