Europe and terrorism. The French lesson

European countries considering tougher anti-terrorism measures are increasingly looking to France for an example

SINCE the London bombings, all European governments have been re-evaluating their counter-terrorism strategies. Many have been studying France, which has both experience of Islamist terrorism and a reputation for toughness. Right on cue, the French government has promised a new anti-terrorism law by the end of this month, designed to strengthen the hardline approach that it has put in place over the past ten years.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, sums up this approach as “zero tolerance”. It has three broad elements. The first is increased surveillance. Thanks to the Renseignements Generaux, the second domestic intelligence agency, a network of agents has for years monitored Muslim activity, especially since the 1995 Paris bomb attacks by Algerian terrorists. Of the country's 1,600 mosques and prayer places, the RG reckons that perhaps 50, mainly in Paris, Lyons and Marseilles, are under the influence of radicals, mostly Salafists. Although only a few of these actually advocate violence, Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, has long argued that all radical preaching is susceptible to calls for terrorism, so close monitoring is essential.

It is also now recognised that terrorist recruitment may no longer take place in official places of worship, but rather in private apartments, Islamic bookshops, fast-food joints, even rural retreats. The intelligence agencies are particularly worried about three groups: converts to Islam, citizens who have fought in Iraq and brought back violent ideas, and those who are radicalised in prison. France's Muslims make up under 10% of the total population, but a majority of prisoners, says Farhad Khosrokhavar, author of a study on the subject.

For a country that has few hang-ups about surveillance, France uses relatively little machinery to monitor what people are doing. There are 6,000 CCTV cameras on the London Underground alone, but only 900 that record permanently on the Paris Metro and RER rail network. After seeing their value in London, Mr Sarkozy plans to install cameras throughout the capital's public-transport system. His new law will lengthen the time that such film is kept, currently only a month. And mobile-telephone firms will be required to keep records for at least a year.

The second element in France's approach might be termed “offensive harassment”. The French have long been exasperated by what they see as excessive tolerance of radical Islam in Britain. They prefer active intolerance. The authorities often raid places suspected of harbouring extremists. The pretext may be anodyne: a health and safety check, a tax audit. According to a leaked RG report, 88 such raids were made in the Paris region alone last year, on restaurants, butchers, long-distance telephone shops and the like, involving 1,173 people. Of these, 185 were taken into custody, and eight prosecuted.

The point is not necessarily to uncover acts of violence in preparation, but to deter any such activity in the first place. “One cannot quite imagine Anglo-Saxon countries imitating our tactic of harassment, sometimes without real elements of proof,” Alain Chouet, former head of France's external-intelligence agency, told Le Figaro. “Sometimes it's a bit borderline, but it upsets the networks, prevents them from taking action.” No changes to this policy are planned, but liberal opinion seems readier to accept it than it once was.

The third element is a tough criminal-justice system, long predating September 11th. Suspected terrorists can be held for 96 hours without charge. A 1996 law gives judges free rein to detain suspects merely for “association with wrongdoers involved in a terrorist enterprise”. The four French suspects released from Guantanamo Bay last year were immediately detained on their return to France. The justice minister, Pascal Clement, plans to toughen this law, lengthening the penalty for such association from ten to 15 years.

France also takes a hard line over expulsion of radical clerics. This policy, begun when Mr de Villepin was interior minister, is now being stepped up. Mr Sarkozy expelled two Algerians in July. One, Abdelhamid Aissaoui, a young preacher accused of encouraging jihadists, had already been sent to prison for his role in a 1995 attempted bombing near Lyons. The other, Reda Ameuroud, was deported after calling for jihad in Paris. Mr Sarkozy told Le Parisien that “we must act against these radical preachers who are capable of influencing the youngest and weakest-minded.” He expects another dozen preachers to be expelled by the end of August, and he is considering withdrawing the citizenship of any French nationals involved - though it is far from clear where such non-citizens might then be sent.

Other countries are acting along the same lines as France. Britain is considering new anti-terrorism laws. Germany, which already has a muscular set of legal tools left over from the years of left-wing terrorism in the 1970s, has passed even tougher measures recently. After the Madrid bombings, it enacted new laws to make it easier to deport those preaching jihad. Recently the interior minister, Otto Schily, has suggested giving German federal police additional powers to act pre-emptively and to let judges order the detention of suspected terrorists even without a conviction.

Yet the reaction to this last proposal shows that there are limits to how far Germany will go. Mr Schily, who as a lawyer once defended alleged terrorists himself, took much flak for his idea, with its shades of Guantanamo; some suggested he had forgotten the lessons of the Third Reich. The courts, too, are raising red flags. The Constitutional Court recently struck down legislation in Lower Saxony that allowed preventive eavesdropping on telecommunications, and the judges declared unconstitutional a law implementing the European arrest warrant, allowing a suspect wanted by Spain to go free.

Europe in general, and France in particular, prides itself on being the birthplace of human rights. Yet the repressive legal armoury in France prompted barely a murmur of liberal protest even before the London bombings. There is little to match public demands in Britain that foreigners who are thrown out must not face ill-treatment at home - French magistrates tend to accept at face value assurances that this will not happen. Indeed, the French request for the extradition from Britain of Rashid Ramda, wanted in connection with a 1995 Paris bomb attack, was resisted by his lawyers on the ground that he might be ill-treated in France. The French seemed happy to forgo some civil liberties in the name of security, even before the latest terrorism threat. In today's climate, other Europeans are starting to think similarly.

European countries considering tougher anti-terrorism measures are increasingly looking to France for an example.