France deports 2 Muslims; 3 more to follow

France has deported two Muslims described as radicals, with three more deportations likely to follow soon, the country's interior minister said Monday. One of those deported was a militant from Algeria involved in attacks in Morocco in 1994, and the second was a Malian imam sent home for preaching anti-Semitism, Interior Minister Claude Gueant said in a statement. Gueant said the three impending deportations involved a Saudi Arabian imam, a Tunisian militant and a Turkish imam, CNN reported. Gueant said the moves were part of "an acceleration of the deportation procedures of foreign Islamic radicals." The moves follow last week's arrest in France of 19 people suspected of being Islamic radicals. Those arrests came a week after Mohammed Merah, a Muslim who claimed al-Qaida ties, killed three French soldiers and four Jewish civilians. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is up for re-election, said the raids targeted those who do not share the country's values, CNN said. "It's all over the country. It's in connection with a form of radical Islam, and it's in agreement with the law," he said. "There will be other operations that will continue and that will allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people who have no reason to be here."