TerrorismFrance Arrests Seven Former Red Brigades Members

French police on Wednesday arrested seven Italian nationals who members of the leftist Red Brigades terrorist group which terrorized Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.

One of the group’s more spectacular crimes was the kidnapping and murder of a former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro.

The French government said the arrests were made at the request of Italy.

The Elysee Palace said a search was underway for three more members of the group.

Le Monde quotes French government sources saying that Italy has also urged French President Emmanuel Macron to extradite the extreme-left terrorists, who have been hiding in France for decades to avoid facing an Italian court.

Former French Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, who was in power from 1981 to 1995, launched what came to be known as the “Mitterrand Doctrine”: offering European leftists radicals protection from extradition if they renounced violence and had not been accused of violent acts in their home countries.

This policy has led to tensions between France and several European countries, especially Italy.

The French president’s office said Wednesday that France was still upholding the Mitterrand Doctrine, but that new investigations would be conducted in each case to determine whether allowing the aging leftist radicals to remain in France was justified.

In the case of the seven former members of the Red Brigades, the arrests and extraditions were necessary, Macron’s office said.

“France, also affected by terrorism, understands the absolute necessity of providing justice for victims,” the statement said.

“This transfer [of the seven arrested individuals to Italy], is also part of the absolute need to build a Europe of justice in which mutual confidence must be at the center.”

Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi welcomed France’s decision to act on Italy’s request. He said those arrested were “responsible for very serious terrorist crimes, which have left a wound that is still open.”

The memory of their “barbaric acts” remained very much alive in Italy, he added.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio commented: “These former Brigade members were accused and convicted in Italy for acts of terrorism related to the bloody events of the 1970s and 1980s.”

The fact that they had been arrested now showed “one cannot run away from one’s responsibilities, from the pain inflicted, the harm caused,” he said.

He tweeted that the operation was the result of French-Italian cooperation.

More than fifty people died in terror attacks by the Red Brigades, which carried out sabotage, bank robberies, kidnappings, and murders.

The Red Brigades’ campaign of violence was part of a larger violent landscape which characterized Italy from the late 1960s and the mid-1980s. Hundreds were killed in bombings, assassinations, and street warfare by rival far-right and far-left factions during that period of turmoil and chaos, which came to be called as the Years of Lead (Anni di piombo).