France and Tunisia strengthen their security relations after the attack in Niza

The French interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, travelled to Tunisia with the aim of strengthening collaboration in the fight against terrorism, improving the exchange of information and speeding up the extradition of Tunisian citizens who are in an irregular situation or under investigation in France, in a visit planned before last week's attack in Niza.

However, this attack claimed by the Daesh, allegedly perpetrated by Brahim Aouissaoui, a young Tunisian who arrived in the country illegally via the Mediterranean, was the focus of part of the meetings he held with his colleague, Taoufik Charfeddine, and the president of the republic, Kaies Said.

Charfeddine assured the press that "Tunisia is prepared to receive any Tunisian", but warned "that this must be done in accordance with the conditions and regulations laid down by international law and humanitarian law in order to respect the dignity of those who return".

Hours earlier, the President of the Republic had spoken in the same vein, calling for the issue of counter-terrorism to be addressed "from a new approach based on the fight against the real causes that led to its exacerbation".

Said recalled that Tunisia and France had already signed an agreement in 2008 on the expulsion of illegal immigrants, and announced a project to broaden dialogue between security officials in the two countries in search of "solutions to existing obstacles".

At the subsequent press conference, he acknowledged that the Tunisian intelligence services "provided important information" to his French colleagues about the alleged perpetrator of the attack on the Notre Damme basilica in Nice, who allegedly killed four people with a knife, shouting "Allah is the greatest".
 

Diplomatic sources, for their part, indicated that Darmanin, who plans to travel to Algiers on Sunday with the same aim, travelled to the North African country with a list of some twenty Tunisian suspects that France wishes to expel as they have been convicted of terrorism or Jihadist radicalism.

According to the figures handled by the French intelligence services, nearly 70 percent of the more than 230 foreigners who are illegally in France and have been investigated for religious radicalism come from Russia and the Maghreb region, which includes Tunisia and Algeria.

According to the prestigious analysis group "The Soufian Group", Russia is the main country of origin of the foreign fighters who joined the Daesh organisation, followed by Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Tunisia.

The latter country, where it is estimated that some 5,000 combatants have joined the Daesh, suffered a chain of Jihadist attacks in 2015 that claimed the lives of 72 people, 60 of them foreign tourists.

In addition to Aoussaoui, in 2016 Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was accused of a truck attack that killed 84 people in Nice and his compatriot Anis Amri, who killed 12 people at a Christmas market in Berlin.
 

On Saturday the French government paid tribute to the three victims of the attack by an Islamist terrorist in Nice (south-east) and defended its willingness to stand firm against the enemy, "the radical Islamism that disfigures the Muslim religion".

"We know the enemy, it has a name, it is radical Islamism that disfigures the Muslim religion and turns its texts and dogmas upside down to impose its domination through obscurantism and hatred", denounced the French Prime Minister, Jean Castex, who presided over the tribute.

The ceremony took place nine days after the attack by a 21-year-old man on the Basilica of Notre Dame de l'Assomption in the centre of the coastal town, in a particular context marked by the present terrorist threat but also by the coronavirus pandemic that keeps citizens confined.

Three people died in the attack by Brahim Aouissaoui, the one Tunisian entered the church early in the morning armed and determined to kill. On their way they crossed paths with Nadine Devillers, a 60-year-old theatre lover who had her throat slit, the temple sacristan, Vincent Loquès, 54, and Simone Barreto Silva, a 44-year-old Brazilian woman with three children.
 

Devillers and Loquès were killed in the church while Barreto Silva, who had been living in France since 1996, managed to take refuge in a restaurant and raise the alarm, which allowed the police to intervene, and later died from his injuries.

"Without his courage, there might be other victims to deplore," Castex said at the event, which was also attended by the Brazilian ambassador to France.

The photographs of the three victims presided over the ceremony, which took place on Castle Hill, a park that rises above the city on the beachfront, and was also attended by religious representatives, as well as several French ministers, the mayor of the town, Christian Estrosi, and former president Nicolas Sarkozy.