600 left France to join ISIS, 800 more want to, says French PM

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Sunday that 600 people have already left France to join Islamic State and approximately 800 more want to do so in the future despite the fact that ISIS has suffered battlefield defeats in recent months.

“We are in a battle on our soil,” Walls told a gathering of his Socialist party supporters in a speech according to Reuters. “Each day [we] … trace networks, locate cells, arrest individuals. Today 2,029 French citizens of residents are implicated in jihadi networks.”

“Almost 800 would today like to go to these war zones [Iraq and Syria],” he added, “according to intelligence sources.”

Valls said that 1,000 people are currently being monitored closely by the French authorities who suspect them of seeking to leave France to join ISIS.

Of the 600 Valls believes to have left to join ISIS 170 have been killed in fighting to date. Another 300 have returned to France.  

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via Defense News