The threat of a terrorist attack on France is being fuelled by social media and has never been greater, the country’s interior minister has said, 10 years after gunmen killed 12 people in an attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper.
Speaking on the anniversary of the massacre at the paper’s offices, Bruno Retailleau said French intelligence had foiled nine planned attacks last year – three targeting the Olympic Games – and the country “could be hit tomorrow”.
Retailleau, who was appointed last September, said it was the largest number of prevented attacks since 2017. The threat, he said, came from youngsters radicalised by social media and increasingly collaborating with foreign groups.
“Thankfully, since 2015 France has rearmed against terrorism … but the battle against Islamic totalitarianism is far from won and it’s clear that tomorrow France could be hit again,” he said.
The minister, who is known for his hardline conservative views, added: “During the last year, the threat was from within [France]. There may now be a growing cooperation between foreign groups and the domestic threat from youngsters radicalised by social networks. We can exclude nothing.”
Retailleau made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Le Parisien to mark the 10th anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attack, which came on the first of three days of terrorist assaults in 2015 that left 17 people dead. The attack sparked a wave of international solidarity summed up by the slogan JeSuisCharlie (I am Charlie).
A commemorative double-issue of Charlie Hebdo was published on Tuesday, a decade after Chérif and Saïd Kouachi stormed the newspaper’s offices and killed 10 staff members including some of the country’s most recognised caricaturists, along with the then editor’s security officer, Franck Brinsolaro. A 12th victim, a police officer named Ahmed Merabet, was shot in cold blood as he lay injured on the pavement outside.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, as well as several ministers, celebrities and relatives of the victims were expected at a series of ceremonies in Paris to remember the victims. Those killed included Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 26, a trainee police officer shot dead by a third terrorist, Amédy Coulibaly, on 8 January.
On 9 January, Coulibaly took hostages at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket and killed four Jewish people, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham and François-Michel Saada.
All three gunmen were killed in separate shootouts with police on 9 January.
“Paris remembers” was the message on Paris City Hall’s website on Tuesday. It said the commemorations would be conducted with low-key “solemnity, as wished by the victims’ families”.
After a ceremony outside Charlie Hebdo’s former offices in the 11th arrondissement and the laying of wreaths at the spot where Merabet was killed, mourners led by Macron and Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, were due to gather outside Hyper Cacher in the 20th arrondissement. A separate ceremony was to be held for Jean-Philippe.
On Tuesday evening, the French television channel France 2 was scheduled to feature an “exceptional” broadcast around the theme: “Are we still all Charlie?”
Macron has announced he is reviving a plan to build a multimillion-euro museum-memorial to the victims of terrorism at Mont Valérien, an existing memorial site honouring soldiers and resistants who died in the second world war.
The plan was reported to have been dropped before Christmas, but the president said it would go ahead, with a planned opening in 2027.
