French PM warns of Islamist attacks

PARIS – French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Sunday there would be more terrorist attacks in France but proposals by former president Nicolas Sarkozy to boost security were not the right way to deal with the threat.

The French capital was put on high alert last week when French officials said they dismantled a terrorist cell that planned to attack ther Gare de Lyon railway station under the direction of Islamic State.

“This week at least two attacks were foiled,” Manuel Valls said in an interview with Europe 1 radio and Itele television on Sunday.

Valls said there were 15,000 people on the radar of police and intelligent services who were in the process of being radicalized.

“There will be new attacks, there will be innocent victims... this is also my role to tell this truth to the French people,” Valls said.

In an interview newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, Sarkozy said France needed to get tough on Islamist terrorists by creating special courts and detention facilities to boost security.

“He is wrong about trying to wring the neck of the rule of law,” Valls said.

Sarkozy proposed to systematically place French citizens suspected of having terrorist links in special detention facilities.

“And don’t tell me it would be Guantanamo,” Sarkozy said in the interview. “In France, any administrative confinement is subject to subsequent control by a judge.”

Guantanamo, opened by president George W. Bush, was used to hold prisoners rounded up overseas when the United States became embroiled in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq following the September 11, 2001, attacks.