A group of men participating in a self-defense class in a French park sparked off warning signals, prompting police officers to show up and accuse them of "training for jihad," one of the men told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, patrons in the eastern city of Strasbourg were left alarmed after witnessing seven men, some of them with beards, practice scenarios of combative war in which they feigned an attack with fake weapons, including knives and guns, in broad daylight.
After police officials arrived at the scene, identity documents of the men, between the ages of 30 and 45, were checked, with one man being taken in for further questioning.
According to a 35-year-old member of the group, who did not want his name to be released, the man held back by the police was the group's self-defense teacher, according to International Business Times.
Although a police source stated that the men had admitted that they were "training to fight in the name of jihad," the unidentified source denied the claim, saying that none of the group members had talked about training to carry out jihad in Syria.
Specifically, the only heated verbal exchange between officials and members of the group was when the self-defense teacher yelled "infidel" to the police, he said.
"It was our first course, we hardly knew each other. We were doing some stretches, ran a few laps, practiced body placement, punch-kick combinations," he said. "It was simply a self-defense course with a trainer".
"This was not with the aim of going to Syria, we are far from all of that," he added.
Meanwhile, the self-defense trainer was released on Wednesday. But a case was still opened against him for insulting a police officer.
France, home to a population of 66 million, has a Muslim community of 4.7 million (as of 2010), largely of North African descent, who arrived from the 1950s onward in the wake of France's de-colonization and the 1970s regroupement familial policy, which welcomed the families of migrant workers from ex-colonies.
In recent years, "France has witnessed a growing threat of terrorism as hundreds of young French Muslims are believed to have flocked abroad to fight for jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, with the potential to return home as radicalized members of society," IBT reported. As many as 1,500 British Muslims may have travelled to the Middle East to fight for ISIS, putting the figure at more than twice the number that fight for the British armed forces, a British MP claimed last week.
Last week, an entire French family of 11, including a grandmother, is believed to have escaped their French scenic coast city of Nice to join the Islamic State fighters in Syria, French government officials said.
