France wary of its Pakistani community

France wary of its Pakistani community

PARIS: The Pakistani community in France and elsewhere in Europe is now, more than ever, being watched by intelligence services concerned about its role as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism that could give rise to attacks like those in London last month, French experts say.

The daily Le Figaro said on Monday that a confidential report by intelligence service of France that was finalised days before the July 7 London bombings pointed to the threat of an al-Qaeda attack in Britain. It said the report by the DCRG intelligence agency also highlighted the need to closely observe France's 40,000-strong Pakistani community with a view to preventing an attack on French soil.

An Interior Ministry official confirmed the existence of the report, but cautioned that it was "a very technical study on the Pakistani community in France". He said it was not aimed at lecturing Britain on what might happen on its own soil.

According to the report quoted by Le Figaro, those plotting an attack could count on the "support of Jihadis within the large Pakistani community in Britain" and warned: "France is not immune from this kind of violent group." The report pointed to the multiplication of passages through France by Pakistani activists from south Asia or London and the setting up of underground or official representations of the main extremist groups.

Louis Caprioli, a former anti-terrorism officer with France's DST counter-espionage agency, who is now a consultant with the private security firm Geos, told AFP that the Pakistani community in France insofar as it has elements practising Islamic fundamentalism, has always attracted the attention of the (intelligence) services. "That started in the 1990s, when it emerged that Pakistan was a transit point for Jihad training in Afghanistan," he said. Richard Reid, the British "shoe bomber" who failed in a bid to bring down a Paris-Miami flight in Dec 2001, notably had connections with Pakistanis in France, he said.