FRENCH police are inspecting 76 mosques in a national crackdown on what President Emmanuel Macron calls “Islamic separatism.”

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that any mosques found guilty of promoting extremism would be shut down. He said the Macron government had closed down 43 mosques over the past three years.

Mr Darmanin says the inspections are a necessary response to incidents of Islamist terror such as the murder of teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded on October 16 after showing his pupils cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in a class on free speech.