Those crazy Frenchmen!
A French journalist held hostage for months by extremists in Syria says one of his captors was a Frenchman suspected of killing four people at the Brussels Jewish Museum earlier this year.
French magazine Le Point on Saturday quoted its reporter Nicolas Henin as saying he was tortured by Mehdi Nemmouche, a Frenchman who had spent time with extremists in Syria.
Such an odd use of the word ‘Frenchman’. It’s accepted, and ‘factual’ in polite society, but is testimony to the utter deracination of a country like France.
In remarks carried on Le Point’s website, Henin said Nemmouche was part of a small group of French-speaking Islamic State recruits that regularly tortured a group of Syrian prisoners held alongside Western journalists in Aleppo.
Henin was held for a time with American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, both beheaded by extremists from the Islamic State group in recent weeks. He was released in April with other French journalists who had been held since June 2013.
Nemmouche is in custody since his arrest in France soon after the Brussels killing in May. The attack crystallized fears of European governments that Europeans who join radical fighters in Syria could return to stage attacks at home.
French authorities say there are some 900 people from France who have been implicated in jihad in Iraq and Syria . Several dozen have been killed.
