Questions raised over French security intelligence

Every terrorist attack in France in recent years, from Toulouse in 2012 to the atrocity at the Charlie Hebdo offices in January, has been accompanied by bitter recriminations over intelligence failures.

This morning, France’s security chiefs will come under greater pressure than ever.

More than seven attackers, at least one of whom was known to the authorities as a potential radical suspected of having spent time in Syria, were able to procure Kalashnikovs and explosive vests and carry out what appears to have been a carefully planned series of co-ordinated attacks at busy locations without so much as flashing across the authorities' radar.

And this at a time when Paris was already on high alert after the Charlie Hebdo attack.

"It's the security services' nightmare – multiple murderous acts at several locations in a big city," according to Claude Moniquet, a former agent of the DGSE, France's external security agency.

He said the authorities in France had trained in how they would respond to an attack such as this, reminiscent of an attack on Mumbai in July 2006.

“They dreaded it. Now it has happened.”

Anger over intelligence failures is tempered by a recognition of the task the authorities face, however.

Prime minister Manuel Valls was quick to defend the security agencies, pointing out they had averted attacks in the past and faced immense obstacles in their work.

Keeping track

Not the least of these is the fact that, notwithstanding heavy recruitment in recent years, the security agencies are overwhelmed by having to keep track of those who have left to join jihadi groups in Syria,

Iraq

or

Yemen

, and those who have returned.

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence estimates that between 1200 and 1450 fighters in Syria and Iraq are French, making France the biggest European exporter of militants to the region.

About 200 are said to have returned to France. As Valls pointed out, living in a free and open society involves a trade-off between security and freedom.

“We have always said that there is never zero risk,” he said on TF1’s main evening news.

Valls was adamant that France would respond, however. Within 24 hours he was speaking about deporting radical imams and revoking citizenship from those who “trample on the soul of France”.

Potential threats

Former president

Nicolas Sarkozy

was quick to suggest more ways in which the Hollande government could act.

On television on Sunday evening, he said the intelligence services had files on 11,500 people who they regarded as potential threats to national security.

The state should consider putting electronic tags on all of them and putting them under intense surveillance, Sarkozy suggested.

If it is confirmed that the attack was co-ordinated from Belgium, questions will also be raised about intelligence co-operation and, more broadly, about the future of the Schengen area. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, has already called for border controls to be restored immediately.

Then there’s Syria. Valls said at the weekend that France would extend its air campaign against the so-called Islamic State.

Even before the Paris attacks, France had announced that its sole aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, would be deployed to the Middle East, arriving on November 18th.

The intensification reflects a similar shift in Washington, where President Barack Obama has been stepping up the air offensive.

“Our security services did not fail,” Valls said.

“You won’t hear a word from me that could call into question the work of our operational forces. I said at the time of Charlie Hebdo that we were at war. And we will reply, blow for blow.”