The interior minister said that more than 8,000 radicalised Islamist terrorists are registered by the authorities, there are currently 505 inmates detained for terrorism in the country’s prisons and 702 prisoners are at risk of radicalisation. Marking the date that the lawsuit of the perpetrators of the 2015 terrorist attack will start on 2 September, the satirical weekly has reissued the Mohamed caricatures which stirred scandal five years ago.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has given a speech on terrorist threat at the headquarters of the Directorate-General for Internal Security (FGDI). He said that the main threat to the country s security was the possibility of attacks perpetrated by Sunni terrorists. There are currently 8,132 radicalised Islamists on the official lists in France.

The figures show that there were 21 attacks between 1979 and 2000, which claimed 37 lives. It was followed by a relatively quiet period between 2000 and 2012, when 8 people died in 8 attacks. The most tragic period in the country s recent history was the one between 2013 and 2019, with a total of 272 people killed in 42 terrorist attacks.

2015 was the most traumatic year, when terrorists attacked the Paris offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in January, killing 12 people. Then in November, also in 2015, the French capital was shocked by a series of terrorist attacks in different locations across the city, leaving another 137 people dead.

The prosecution in Paris says that the Islamic State has accumulated enormous wealth and lost nothing of its determination. However, the interior minister warns that the real danger is „within the walls,” i.e. a terrorist threat exists in the country, inspired by the veterans of jihad and fuelled by the propaganda of terrorist groups while adherents of radical Islam also pose a high risk.

The fact that 505 Islamist terrorists are currently detained in French prisons and 702 prisoners are at a risk of radicalisation gives ground to growing concerns. Gerald Darmanin warns that the threat posed by Islamists released from prison has never been so high in the country. It is projected that 45 Islamist prisoners convicted of terrorist acts will leave French prisons in 2020 and another 63 in 2021.

The trial of the perpetrators of the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo s offices on 7 January 2015 will begin on 2 September and last until 10 November. On this occasion, the satirical magazine has republished the cartoons depicting Mohammed that prompted the jihadists attack. „We will never sleep, we will never give up,” the magazine s director, Riss commented on the republication of the cartoons.