There is an inside enemy with several dozens of operatives in France, warns Interior Minister Valls

In an interview with French daily newspaper Le Parisien/Aujourd'hui en France, the socialist Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls declared that several terrorist groups which were about to act have been dismantled in the last few weeks. Recently, several Islamic extremist preachers were indeed expelled from France.

Reminding that in March 2012, 23-year-old French-Algerian terrorist Mohamed Merah killed French soldiers because they were French, Jewish children and father because they were Jewish, Mr Valls explained that around a hundred people are currently shaping the core of a growing threat to France's national security. A number of them came or plan to go to Syria along with other Al Qaeda activists from around the world. Some of them allegedly came back from Sahel or Somalia, with additional and possibly deadly experience and training. "We are facing an external enemy in Mali, we are also facing an inside enemy who is the result of a radicalization process," said the French official.

According to him, radicalization starts with petty crime, matures through drug trafficking, through time behind bars and eventually leads to conversion to Islamic extremism and a strong hatred for the West. In addition to counterterrorism, law enforcement and judiciary measures, Mr Valls urged for France's Islamic community to build a genuine "Islam of France" animated by French-speaking, locally trained Imams. Lastly, the Minister said he is growingly concerned by foreign funding of Islamic places of worship in France. Mr Valls found this fact harder and harder to put with, he said.

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