The European Union has to legislate the removal of terrorism-related content from the Internet within one hour next week as a matter of urgency to reinforce the fight against the terrorist threat in member states, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.
"Internet is a space of freedom, but this freedom does not exist if there is insecurity and if it serves as shelter for those who violate our values or want to spread mortifying ideology. That is why the regulation of extracting terrorist content within one hour must absolutely be adopted next week. It is essential," Macron said.
The French president also conveyed his country's "firm support" to the European Commission's initiative of proposing a new legislation against hate speech in early December.
"We need intergovernmental work to improve coordination in security, the work of our services together to fight against terrorism, to better orgze ourselves in the fight against all forms of radicalization in our societies," Macron continued, adding that "any security breach on the external borders or on the borders of one of our member states is a security risk for all the member states."
Among the concrete steps that he proposed were the development of a shared database, police cooperation and the reinforcement of legal tools.
France vowed to ramp up the fight against radical Islamism and terrorism after two brutal religiously-motivated attacks were carried out in its territory last month. A 21-year-old man from Tunisia killed three people in a church in France's southern city of Nice, including two by beheading, on October 29. Two weeks before that, a 17-year-old local Muslim teen beheaded a Parisian teacher who showed caricatures of prophet Muhammad during a freedom of speech lesson.
When another terrorist attack took place in Austria on November 2, claiming the lives of four people excluding the perpetrator and injuring 17 others, governments of other countries across Europe rushed to reinforce their counter-terrorist measures as well. (/Sputnik)
( With inputs from ANI )
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