Manuel Valls, under fire after recent attacks, says he is open to idea of banning foreign financing of mosques

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

France’s prime minister has said he would consider a temporary ban on the foreign financing of mosques, urging a “new model” for relations with Islam after a spate of jihadi attacks.

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Manuel Valls, under fire for perceived security lapses around the attacks, also admitted to a failure by the authorities after it was revealed that one of the jihadis who stormed a church and killed a priest on Tuesday had been released with an electronic tag pending trial.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Valls said he was “open to the idea that – for a period yet to be determined – there should be no financing from abroad for the construction of mosques”.

The prime minister also called for imams to be “trained in France, not elsewhere”.

He said the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, whose portfolio also includes religious affairs, was working on building a new model for France’s relations with Islam.

Both Valls and Cazeneuve have faced calls to resign after the second jihadi attack in less than a fortnight raised questions over France’s vigilance and preparedness.

The government has faced tough questions since it emerged that both church attackers had been on the radar of intelligence services and had tried to go to Syria.

Sparking particular anger was the revelation that one of the assailants, 19-year-old Adel Kermiche, had been released from prison while awaiting trial on terror charges after his second attempt to travel to Syria.

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Kermiche, who was wearing an electronic tag, was allowed out of his home on weekday mornings, enabling him and his accomplice to storm a church in the Normandy town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray and slit the throat of Jacques Hamel, an 86-year-old priest.

Kermiche’s accomplice, Abdel Malik Nabil Petitjean, also 19, had been on the security watchlist since trying to reach Syria from Turkey.

The government was already facing a firestorm of criticism over alleged security failings after the Bastille Day truck massacre in Nice two weeks ago that left 84 people dead.

In the government’s first admission of failure since the two attacks, Valls acknowledged Kermiche’s liberty was a “failure, it has to be recognised”, adding that judges needed to take a “different, case-by-case, approach, given the jihadis’ very advanced concealment methods”. But he said it was “too easy to hold judges responsible for this act of terrorism”.

Meanwhile, a source close to the investigation said a Syrian asylum seeker had been taken in for questioning after being arrested at a refugee centre in Alliers, central France.

A 30-year-old member of Petitjean’s family and a 16-year-old whose brother travelled with Kermiche were also in custody.

The French government said everything possible was being done to protect citizens, while warning that further terror attacks were inevitable, after three major strikes and several smaller attacks in the past 18 months.

On Thursday evening, Isis’s official news agency, Amaq, released a video allegedly made by Petitjean before the Normandy attack, urging followers to carry out further attacks.

In the two-minute film, he warns the French president, François Hollande, and Valls: “The times have changed. You will suffer what our brothers and sisters are suffering. We are young and determined … we will destroy your country.”

Hamel’s funeral will be held in the Gothic cathedral of nearby Rouen on Tuesday. On Friday, France will observe a day of fasting and prayer called by the French Catholic church “for our country and for peace in the world”.