SPECULATION mounted yesterday that a gang of amateurish but north Africans who a car bomb attack on a station were linked to Algerian Islamic fundamentalists, despite government claims to the contrary.
After claiming the opposite, the Interior Minister, Mr Jean Louis Debre did not rule out a link between Islamic extremism and six young men, mostly Moroccans and Algerians, who were killed in a shoot out with French and Belgian police last Friday in Lille's twin city of Roubaix and in Kortrijk, (Courtrai) Belgium.
"It is clear this is a case of banditry. But it is not impossible there are other parameters," Mr Debre said.
French newspapers speculated yesterday that the French government's attitude was linked to the Group of Seven summit on unemployment which opened in this northern city.
"Something tells us we shall have to wait for the end of the G7 meeting in Lille, where the gang that was wiped out was planning a massive attack, to know about the `brains' who inspired the very special toughs of Roubaix," the daily, France Soir, said yesterday.
The daily Liberation quoted a Lille detective as saying the government's attitude was "political" and that it was unwilling to "give a terrorist connotation to the case".
Eight people were killed and more than 200 injured in a wave of attacks in France last year, believed to have been masterminded by the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) which objects to French support for the military backed regime in Algeria.
Police have found Islamic documents, some of them banned, in the Roubaix house stormed by elite commandos on Friday.
Four members of the gang died in the attack in which the house was destroyed by fire.