President Sarkozy announces crackdown on Internet hate sites

President Nicolas Sarkozy said that France would make it a crime to consult Web sites that advocate terrorism or hate crimes and would toughen a crackdown on people who went abroad for ideological indoctrination.

"From now on, any person who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be criminally punished," Sarkozy said in a televised address after police shot dead an al Qaeda-inspired gunman who had killed seven people. "France will not tolerate forced recruitment or ideological indoctrination on its soil," Sarkozy said, adding that an enquiry would be launched into whether prisons were being used to propagate extremism in France.