France is confiscating weapons from roughly 100 people on a watchlist of potential Islamist militants, two weeks after state prosecutors said an assailant inspired by Islamic State had been a gun-club member
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France is confiscating weapons from roughly 100 people on a watchlist of potential Islamist militants, the interior minister said on Thursday, two weeks after state prosecutors said an assailant inspired by Islamic State had been a gun-club member.
Minister Gerard Collomb was speaking ahead of a parliamentary vote to extend emergency search-and-arrest powers given to police after Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris in November 2015. "We traced about a 100 ... We're sizing up the situation and taking the weapons away," he said, adding that police had foiled seven attacks in France this year alone.
The issue of weapons came to light last month when public prosecutors confirmed that a 31-year-old man, who died after ramming his car into a police convoy in Paris, had joined a gun sports club to train as a jihadist fighter. He had built up a large weapons arsenal and renewed his gun permit, despite being on an intelligence services list of people who appear to have been radicalised and could commit attacks.
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