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Fight against Terrorism
Interview given by Philippe Douste-Blazy, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to "I Télé - Le journal de l’international" (excerpts)
Paris, October 14, 2005
(...) TERRORISM Q. – (…) You must have seen today, as we did, the pictures in the Netherlands where Dutch police surrounded the Parliament and government buildings, there was a very serious terrorist threat; seven people were arrested. Much further east, but also of concern to us, there’s been a new anti-terrorist operation in the Caucasus… at least a hundred dead. Given this spectre of terrorism from the Caucasus to London via The Hague, is European policy, cooperation between member States sufficient to counter this increasingly serious threat directed at each one of us at some time or other?
THE MINISTER – At any rate, we’re doing a great deal at European level to harmonize counterterrorist measures: there’s the European Arrest Warrant which is today operational, joint investigation teams – and particularly in our adjacent countries, for example Spain and Germany – which is producing pretty good results, and then, above all, we can now assess the other EU countries’ counterterrorist measures, because if one of the 25 doesn’t make the same effort as the others, obviously the terrorists are going to choose that niche for their operations. Then there’s the white paper which Dominique de Villepin is seeking on the fight against terrorism – he’s obviously absolutely right – and also the law we must pass to step up the fight against terrorism, and Nicolas Sarkozy is working on this. As you know, no one is immune from terrorism, it is the most horrific, despicable, frightening thing there is. So we must all fight it, all of us, but we must also ponder… We were talking just now about the poorest countries: think about it, when you see the famine in the Sahel countries, the Sahelian strip today, when you see that nothing is being done, that these people are utterly destitute, in total despair, we’ve also got to understand that there are people who turn this despair to their advantage, and recruit 18, 19, 20-year olds, subsequently sending them to carry out suicide bombings against northern capitals. And I believe we should also keep this in mind. (…)./.
Embassy of France in the United States - October 14, 2005
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