Earlier, President Trump urged the US' British, French, German and other European allies to take back over 800 terrorist militants captured by the US and its allies in Syria and bring them to justice, warning that alternatively, Washington could “be forced to release them.”
French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet ignored President Trump veiled threat to release European ex-Daesh fighters back onto European soil.
“There is a new geopolitical context, with the US withdrawal. For the time being, we are not changing our policy,” Belloubet said, speaking to france 2 TV on Monday.
“At this stage france is not responding to [Trump's] demands,” she added, noting that Paris would stick to its policy of repatriation of French nationals from Syria and Iraq on a “case by case” basis.”
“When people return from the battlefields, we're going to try them,” Belloubet said.
It's estimated that up to 150 French nationals, two third of them children, are being detained by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria, according to Reuters.
Other European powers have taken a similarly hostile attitude to President Trump's repatriation request, with officials from Denmark, Norway and Sweden rejecting the demand outright or saying they would not work proactively to repatriate their nationals. Berlin pledged to put fighters on trial, but complained that repatriation would be “extremely difficult”…
