Terrorism tops French people's concerns: study

PARIS, Dec. 7 (Xinhua) -- A Thursday release of an annual study of the French National Supervisory Body on Crime and Punishment (ONDRP) showed that terror risks have topped France's priorities for the first time in a decade.

"Terrorism is now the main source of concern for the French, ahead of unemployment and precarious employment, health, environment, delinquency, poverty, road safety, racism and discrimination," the ONDRP said.

One out of three people saw terrorism and attacks as the most worrying problem for today's French society, which is "almost non-existent before the attacks of Jan. 7 and 9, 2015 and the Bataclan bombing in November 2015," it added.

For this year, 32 percent of the French, or 16.4 million, said they were mainly concerned about terrorism, which has taken precedence over the 23 percent who are worried about being jobless.

In 2016, concerns for terrorism and unemployment were at 31 percent respectively, while only 3 percent of French citizens were worried about terrorism in 2014.

France has become a major target of frequent terrorist attacks following its military operations in Syria, Iraq and the Sahel region.

On Jan. 7, 2015, the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, was attacked by heavily armed men. Twelve people were killed, including the chief-editor of the newspaper. On Jan. 9, at least two people were killed and one injured in the Porte de Vincennes hostage crisis in East Paris.

On Nov. 13, 2015, about seven simultaneous shootings and fresh explosions rocked central Paris during the evening. One of the shootings resulted in a hostage taking crisis at the Bataclan theater and concert hall, killing at least 140 people and wounding many.

France had imposed emergency security rules in the wake of the attacks, since which, the country has been overwhelmed again by another wave of attacks, with the bloodiest at Rivera city of Nice where a man drove his truck into a crowd on Bastille Day in 2016, killing 86 people.

In October, French President Emmanuel Macron signed the anti-terrorism law which he said was necessary to ramp up security at home to combat high terrorism menace.

The bill enshrines emergency security rules into ordinary law which empowers the police to search or arrest criminals without prior judicial approval and restrict people's movements or gatherings. Enditem