France is seeking the deportation of 39 Russian nationals who are suspected of holding radical Islamist views, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in an interview with the RMC radio on Oct. 30.
The French side is in contact with Russian authorities and has provided them with a list of those who are to be deported, the minister said. He clarified that Paris cannot expel Russian nationals without Moscow's consent.
The minister said this in reaction to a question about the government's response to a fatal stabbing in the northeastern French town of Arras on Oct. 13.
French authorities charged Mohammed Mogouchkov, a 20-year-old native of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, with the attack that killed a school teacher and injured three other people.
Mogouchkov was known to security forces for his involvement with Islamist extremism, and President Emmanuel Macron called the incident an act of "Islamist terror."
According to Darmanin, 60 Russian nationals are on France's national security watch list in connection to radicalization.
Anastasiia Lapatina
(Updated: )
