BBC Online :
France is to create 2,680 new jobs and boost spending by €425m (£325m; $490m) to bolster counter-terrorism efforts, Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said.
He said such resources were crucial to dealing with an expanded extremist threat, with 3,000 people currently requiring surveillance across France.
Valls was laying out the government’s plans following attacks in Paris in which 17 were killed.
Earlier, a prosecutor gave details on four men charged over the attacks.
Three of the men are alleged to have helped supply arms to Amedy Coulibaly, who is believed to have shot dead a policewoman on 8 January, a day before attacking a Jewish supermarket in Paris where four hostages were killed.
On 7 January, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi attacked the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12. All three gunmen were shot dead by police.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said that international co-operation with authorities in Turkey, Spain and Belgium would continue, as investigators sought information on possible accomplices, the suspects’ travel records and information about how they had got their weapons.
Valls said security forces would be provided with better weapons and protection, including bullet-proof vests. “We will pursue this fight against terrorism relentlessly,” he said.
The new jobs will be created over a period of three years. Some 1,400 will be created through the interior ministry, mostly in counter-terrorism intelligence, with other posts to be opened at the ministries of justice, defence and finance.
The security service reinforcements are a recognition that France’s intelligence-gathering
– normally held up as a paragon in Europe – has fallen behind the times. New officers are needed but also new equipment, and new methods.
Manuel Valls said nearly 3,000 individuals needed to be monitored today. Nearly half of these are people who have been or are planning to go to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State. The others are from older radicalised networks. One lesson of the Kouachi-Coulibaly attacks is that these older networks cannot be neglected.
Intelligence experts in France say it takes 20 officers on the ground to provide round-the-clock monitoring of a suspect. Obviously this is impossible for 3,000 individuals.
France is to create 2,680 new jobs and boost spending by €425m (£325m; $490m) to bolster counter-terrorism efforts, Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said.
He said such resources were crucial to dealing with an expanded extremist threat, with 3,000 people currently requiring surveillance across France.
Valls was laying out the government’s plans following attacks in Paris in which 17 were killed.
Earlier, a prosecutor gave details on four men charged over the attacks.
Three of the men are alleged to have helped supply arms to Amedy Coulibaly, who is believed to have shot dead a policewoman on 8 January, a day before attacking a Jewish supermarket in Paris where four hostages were killed.
On 7 January, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi attacked the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12. All three gunmen were shot dead by police.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said that international co-operation with authorities in Turkey, Spain and Belgium would continue, as investigators sought information on possible accomplices, the suspects’ travel records and information about how they had got their weapons.
Valls said security forces would be provided with better weapons and protection, including bullet-proof vests. “We will pursue this fight against terrorism relentlessly,” he said.
The new jobs will be created over a period of three years. Some 1,400 will be created through the interior ministry, mostly in counter-terrorism intelligence, with other posts to be opened at the ministries of justice, defence and finance.
The security service reinforcements are a recognition that France’s intelligence-gathering
– normally held up as a paragon in Europe – has fallen behind the times. New officers are needed but also new equipment, and new methods.
Manuel Valls said nearly 3,000 individuals needed to be monitored today. Nearly half of these are people who have been or are planning to go to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State. The others are from older radicalised networks. One lesson of the Kouachi-Coulibaly attacks is that these older networks cannot be neglected.
Intelligence experts in France say it takes 20 officers on the ground to provide round-the-clock monitoring of a suspect. Obviously this is impossible for 3,000 individuals.
