French mayor demands terror watchlist suspects are expelled from town

A French mayor has demanded that all suspects on a terror watchlist are expelled from his town.

Guy Lefranc, the mayor of the town of Evreux in Normandy, said he was "furious" when police refused to show him a list of all local suspects on the national security Fiche S watchlist.

In response, Lefranc has demanded that all the town's terror suspects are expelled.

"Given that the state does not give us the means to protect the people of Evreux, I demand the state expels all those who are 'Fiche S'. I feel compelled to ask for this expulsion because I am not entitled to a perfectly legitimate request to know all those who Fiche S' are," mayor Lefranc told AFP.

Lefranc claims that the uncertainty has led him to question whether some of his own staff could pose a terror threat.

"I ask myself a question about some of my staff, who work with the public. I don't know if they are 'Fiche S', I don't know if they are dangerous," the mayor said.

In recent months France has extended its state of emergency decree, following July's Bastille Day attack in Nice, in which 85 people were killed, and the attack on a Normandy church days later, in which an 82-year-old priest had his throat slit. Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Fiche S suspects are those considered a potential threat to national security, including those who have looked at an extremist website or come into contact with other suspects, as well as others who there is evidence to believe may be planning terror attacks.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that more than 10,000 people had been placed on Fiche S watchlists following the January 2015 attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris and a kosher supermarket.