Stripping Nationality
Sarkozy also said he wants to reinforce a measure to strip people linked to terrorist operations of French nationality.The approach has drawn criticism from France's 5 million Muslims, who are mainly from former French colonies in Northern Africa."One cannot be stripped of one's nationality, and one should not expel those people,'' said Abderrahmane Ammari, a Morocco-born imam at a mosque in Evry in the Paris suburbs, in an interview last month.Since the London attacks, which were carried out by four British Muslims, the government has stepped up border controls and is quadrupling military forces patrolling public areas. Sarkozy then said that France would speed up deportation of radical imams. Since October 2003, 34 have been expelled and there are about 10 more the government wants to throw out of the country, he said.Laws boosted the arrest and detention powers of French police for suspected terrorists since attacks by Algerian-based terrorists on the Paris subway killed seven people in 1995.
'Suspicious Transactions'
Sarkozy said he's considering extending the detention period for people arrested in terrorist cases to six days from four days currently, for example to check into "suspicious international financial transactions.''In Britain, the Liberal Democrats, the country's third- largest party, threatened to break a cross-party consensus on anti-terrorism laws, saying it won't support two measures Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government is proposing. One would ban "glorification of terror'' and the other would let police detain suspects for three months without charge.Asked about the threat France's new measures would pose to civil liberties, Sarkozy said that the"first of liberties is to be able to take the metro, the bus, without people fearing for their or their families' lives.''
As in the days of Noah...