"There needs to be a thorough review to form a new relationship with French Islam," the prime minister said. "We live in a changed era and we must change our behavior. This is a revolution in our security culture…the fight against radicalization will be the task of a generation."
The country’s government has faced criticism and questions about its attentiveness and sensitivity to terrorism, after it was revealed that one of the participants of Tuesday’s church attack in Normandy was not known to French anti-terrorist agencies.
One of the attackers, 19-year-old Adel Kermiche, was awaiting trial on charges of terroristic activities and had been released from prison. He was wearing an electronic tracking device and was allowed to leave his house on weekday mornings, which allowed him and Abdel Malik Petitjean, also 19, to go into a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, a town in Normandy, take six people hostage and slit the throat of Father Jacques Hamel, an 86-year-old priest.
Amaq, Daesh’s news agency, released a two-minute video on Thursday purportedly made by Petitjean before the Normandy incident, encouraging others to conduct further attacks. In the film, Petitjean warns Valls and French President François Hollande, stating, "The times have changed. You will suffer what our brothers and sisters are suffering. We are young and determined … we will destroy your country."
This attack came less than two weeks after a Tunisian man killed 84 people and injured 300 after driving a truck through a crowd of revelers during a Bastille Day celebration in Nice.
Valls said Kermiche’s freedom of movement was a "failure," that "has to be recognized." He added that judges must take a 'different, case-by-case approach, given the jihadis’ very advanced concealment methods," but didn’t shirk government responsibility, saying that it was “too easy to hold judges responsible for this act of terrorism.”
With a state of emergency ongoing in France, there is some alarm about a growing number of questionable house arrests since November 2015. Valls responded by saying that France would not be "swayed by populism" and stated that a "French Guantanamo" will not be created.
French intelligence officers are claiming that they do not posses the necessary resources to monitor each person under suspicion. Despite best efforts, the French government has warned its citizens that future terror attacks are "inevitable," regardless of what preventive measures are put in place.
Valls remarked, "This war, which does not only concern France, will be long and we will see more attacks. But we will win, because France has a strategy to win this war. First we must crush the external enemy."
