France to investigate dozens of mosques suspected of radicalisation

 French authorities will swoop down Thursday on dozens of mosques and prayer halls suspected of radical teachings as part of a crackdown on Islamist extremists following a spate of attacks, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said.

Darmanin told RTL radio that if any prayer hall was found to promote extremism it would be closed down.

The inspections to be carried out on Thursday afternoon are part of a response to two gruesome attacks that particularly shocked France – the beheading of a teacher who showed his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and the stabbing to death of three people in a church in Nice.

Darmanin said 76 mosques out of the more than 2,600 Muslim places of worship had been flagged as possible threats to France’s Republican values and its security.

He did not reveal which places of worship would be inspected, but in a note he sent to regional security chiefs, seen by AFP, he listed 16 addresses in the Paris region and 60 others around the country.