The national intelligence coordinator, Laurent Nuñez, also clarified that five ultra-right attacks had also been foiled since 2017.
Le Monde avec AFP
Each end of the year gives rise to several assessments: the national intelligence coordinator Laurent Nuñez drew up, Sunday, January 3, that of French internal security. “Two Sunni Islamist terrorist attacks were foiled in 2020,” he said in the” Grand rendez-vous “of Europe 1 .
Laurent Nuñez, however, gave no indication of nature of these two thwarted terrorist projects. Since 2017, thirty-three such attacks have been foiled, as well as five from the ultra-right.
The intelligence coordinator stressed that “Sunni Islamist terrorism” was “a priority threat, endogenous and increasingly difficult to detect”. Referring to the assassination, last October, of Professor Samuel Paty, he believes that “the act is done extremely quickly”.
“500 convicted of terrorism” in prison
According to him, there is a “common point” between the motivations of the last three attacks attributed to this movement (against the former premises of Charlie Hebdo, against Samuel Paty and in a basilica in Nice): “The blasphemy, the will to avenge the prophet “. For him, the exogenous threat (from abroad) is “less likely”, even if the French services “remain extremely vigilant” on this subject.
He estimated that “60 to 70” convicted of terrorism in France should be released from prison in 2021 and will be subject to “administrative obligations” such as regular attendance or the ban on appearing in certain places. Still “500 convicted of terrorism” and “900 common law detainees who have radicalized” are currently in prison.