[An Nahar] French President Francois Hollande...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist...
said Tuesday that 700 people had left La Belle France to join the fighting in Syria in what he called a "worrying" trend.
I believe most of them are colonists, even those permanent residents in La Belle France.
"A certain number of young Frenchies and young foreigners living in La Belle France... are fighting in Syria -- 700 are listed, that's a lot. Some are dead," Hollande told a presser in Gay Paree.
Hollande said young people needed to be warned about the dangers of going to Syria and that La Belle France needed to "fight against a certain number of networks and havens that sustain terrorism."
French officials have warned of the dangers from French citizens fighting with bully boy and al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria.
Gay Paree prosecutor Francois Molins said this week that more than 400 people were either ready to go to Syria, were in the country or had been and returned.
Western security officials have raised fears that imported muscle trained in Syria could carry out attacks on home soil.
Officials say about 20 French citizens have died in the Syria conflict.
The country was unsettled last week when reports emerged of two brothers who had converted to Islam dying within four months of each other in the conflict.