Two French secondary school students who ran away from home to join Islamist militants in Syria have been apprehended in Turkey as Paris tries to curb a worrying trend.

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A 16-year-old young man returned to France on Sunday, while his 15-year-old classmate was due back this week after his father went to meet him in Turkey.

The pair, pupils at the same school in the southwest city of Toulouse, disappeared on January 6.

Their departure for Turkey, with the intention of joining jihadists fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad was revealed more than a week later by the French media, and later confirmed by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls.

The two teens had established contact with a person based in Turkey who had already hatched a plan to join an Islamist training camp, according to the AFP news agency.

The third individual was being followed by Turkish intelligence services, who then tipped off French authorities as to the whereabouts of the Toulouse runaways.

On January 19, Valls publicly addressed the issue of disenfranchised French youths joining brigades in Syria.

He revealed that 21 French citizens have died fighting in Syria since civil war broke out there almost three years ago.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

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