French police raid 'militant homes' after rallies held for murdered teacher

Police in France have raided the homes of "dozens of militants" a day after tens of thousands of people held  nationwide rallies to demand justice for a teacher, who was beheaded outside his school in a Paris suburb on Friday.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Monday over 80 investigations were underway for online hate speech against the teacher, who had been the target of hateful attacks on the internet before being murdered.

Samuel Paty, a history teacher, had raised controversy and provoked anger over showing defamatory cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad to his students.

On Sunday, thousands gathered in the Place de la République in Paris, wearing masks to protect them from the coronavirus, and carrying signs that read “Teaching yes, bleeding no” and “I am a teacher.”

Prime Minister Jean Castex and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo also joined the rally.

Among the protesters was a French Muslim, who expressed her disgust at the killing.

Paty was murdered on Friday by an 18-year-old assailant, identified as Chechen Abdullakh Anzorov, who was shot dead by police soon after the killing.

The teacher had recently been the target of an angry campaign on social media, according to anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard.

Police have so far made arrests  as part of an investigation into the incident, without providing any details.

President Emmanuel Macron, who described the incident as an "Islamist terrorist attack," said Paty was murdered because he "taught freedom of expression.”

Macron has recently come under scrutiny for describing Islam as “a religion that is today in crisis all over the world.”

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The president held a Defense Council meeting with senior cabinet ministers on Sunday.

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His government, which is under pressure from conservative and far-right parties to take a tougher stance on non-nationals, decided in the meeting to expel 231 foreigners, who are on a government watch list.

The interior minister ordered the expulsions on Sunday afternoon.

Darmanin also asked his ministry’s services to examine more closely the requests of people wishing to obtain the status of refugee in the country.

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French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire also said during the meeting that he would propose reinforcing controls on the financial flows of certain groups.

“There is a problem of financing a number of Islamist associations on which I think we can and must do better,” he said.

He cited cryptocurrencies as an example were controls could be improved, saying they could be used to finance groups or militants abroad.

“Cryptocurrencies pose a real problem of terrorism financing,” he said. “we must reinforce our devices.”

National tribute planned for Paty

A national tribute will be held in memory of the murdered teacher on Wednesday.

The murder comes as a trial is underway in France over the 2015 deadly attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that had published cartoons of the prophet.

Protesters on Sunday were also holding signs of “I am Charlie” in a reference to the killings.

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The caricatures reprinted this week were originally published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005.

The magazine republished the offensive cartoons in the run-up to the trial last month, prompting anger among Muslims across the world.

The Macron government has also come under fire for failing to condemn the republication of the cartoons.

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Many believed that the government’s silence was not to defend freedom of speech, but meant to stoke freedom of hate speech against Muslims.

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