French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed today to crack down on extremist indoctrination in the wake of the murder of seven people by a self-proclaimed Islamist militant.

He said he wanted legal action against people who regularly consulted jihadist websites or who travelled abroad for indoctrination and said he wanted to stop French jails being a breeding ground for extremism.

"Henceforth, any person who habitually consults Internet sites which praise terrorism and which call for hatred and violence will be punished under criminal law," he said in a televised address.

Any person who travels abroad for "indoctrination into ideologies which lead to terrorism" will be prosecuted, Sarkozy said, shortly after the alleged killer of the seven was shot dead by police in Toulouse.

The president added that he had asked his justice minister to investigate the propagation of extremist ideologies in French prisons.

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