SPY EYES

The French government is under pressure to explain why more was not done to stop a self-styled Al Qaeda gunman who reportedly killed seven people.

Mohamed Merah, 23, died in a hail of bullets at the end of a marathon siege in the city of Toulouse.

He had reportedly admitted to killing three Muslim soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi over the past two weeks.

The picture that is emerging of Merah is one of a disturbed young man who was known to French intelligence officials and was on the United States no-fly list.

The Frenchman of Algerian descent had told investigators he had started reading the Koran while in a French prison and became a radical.

The prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Francois Molins, says Merah had travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He says Merah was interviewed by intelligence agents in Toulouse in November but told them he had been to Afghanistan on holiday – and even showed them photographs.

But questions are being asked about how a man who was under government surveillance was able to access weapons and kill seven people before being caught.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has been lambasting Muslim immigration as part of her presidential election campaign, was quick to accuse the government of “laxity” towards the “fundamentalist risk”.

A spokesman for Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande said there had been a surveillance “failing”.

Socialist Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a former defence and interior minister, said the killings were “a warning for services in charge of anti-terrorism”.

Some ordinary citizens, who will vote in the first round of presidential elections on April 22, also suggested the authorities were slow to halt Merah’s rampage.

“They should have got him a long time ago, they knew where he was and what he’d done,” said Amairi Messaoud, 55.

“How come he had been in court 15 times for minor offences and they didn’t get him?”

But interior minister Claude Gueant rejected accusations of intelligence slip-ups.

“The DCRI follows lots of people involved in radical Islam. Expressing ideas, espousing Salafist beliefs, is not a sufficient reason to arrest someone,” he said.

Foreign minister Alain Juppe said “light must be shed” on what happened in the run-up to the killings, but insisted there was “no reason” to think there were any failings.

Security expert Francois Heisbourg said that “the question should at least be asked” about eventual intelligence errors.

“To err is perfectly human. For me, it was clear that our immunity to attacks couldn’t last forever,” he said.

“One day or another a terrorist was going to slip through the net, but of course that can’t excuse any possible errors of judgement.”

Investigators are now trying to establish if Merah was a lone home-grown militant, or working with others under instruction.

Meanwhile, candidates for the presidential election have resumed campaigning.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged action, announcing a crackdown on internet hate sites and those who travel abroad for indoctrination.

“Any person who consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be criminally punished,” he said.

He also labelled Merah a “monster”.

“These crimes were not the work of a madman. A madman is irresponsible. These crimes were the work of a fanatic and a monster,” said.

“To look for an explanation… would be a moral fault.”

Mr Sarkozy’s poll numbers are improving, but Ms Pen is determined to put the blame for the murders squarely back on him.

ABC News