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STRASBOURG, France, March 23 (UPI) -- Repeat visitors to extremist Web sites should be imprisoned, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after a standoff with an Islamic militant ended in Toulouse. "Anyone who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be criminally sentenced to prison," Sarkozy said, calling for a new law at a campaign rally Thursday night in Strasbourg, in eastern France's Alsace region near Germany.
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He said the law would make viewing extremist Web sites punishable, much like viewing child pornography sites.
"Don't tell me it's impossible -- what is possible for pedophiles should be possible for trainee terrorists and their supporters too," he said, alluding to France's two-year prison sentence and $40,000 fine for people convicted of repeat visits to child-pornography or child-abuse-images Web sites.
He said a similar punishment should be given to people who preach violence to Muslims in mosques or prisons, The Washington Post reported.
In a televised address shortly after 23-year-old Mohammed Merah -- wanted in the execution-style shooting deaths of three French paratroopers, a rabbi and three schoolchildren ages 4, 5, and 7 -- was killed in a violent confrontation with police, Sarkozy said French ethnic and religious groups must unite under the flag.
"Today the French people must overcome their indignation and avoid giving free rein to their anger," he said.
Merah was a self-proclaimed al-Qaida militant who French authorities acknowledged Thursday was a known Islamic fundamentalist who trained in Afghanistan.
But Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Merah had not "shown any sign of preparing criminal acts" before the current shooting spree.
Spanish security services received a French intelligence alert in 2007 saying Merah planned to travel to Spain's Costa Brava region northeast of Barcelona, south of the French border, to attend a meeting of Islamist activists, the British newspaper The Guardian reported, citing Spanish media.
French intelligence officials told their Spanish counterparts they considered him dangerous, the newspaper said.
A U.S. official said Merah was on the U.S. no-fly list, created and maintained by the U.S. Terrorist Screening Center, of people not permitted to board a commercial aircraft for travel in or out of the United States.
An al-Qaida-linked group, Jund al-Khilafah, claimed responsibility for Merah's shootings in a statement posted on jihadist Web sites.
"On ... March 19th, our brother Yousef the Frenchman carried out an operation that shook the foundations of the Zionist Crusaders ... and filled their hearts with terror," the statement said.
"We claim responsibility for these operations," it said, adding Israel's "crimes ... will not go unpunished."
Merah admitted during long talks with police negotiators he carried out the shootings.
He said his motive was to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children in Israeli-occupied territories, France's military involvement in Afghanistan and a year-old French law banning full-face Muslim veils.
He expressed no remorse, other than wishing he had killed more people, the Telegraph said.
On March 11, moments before shooting a French soldier of Muslim origin in the head at close range, Merah told him, "You kill my brothers, so I am killing you," a video Merah made of the shooting indicated.
On March 15, Merah shot two more French soldiers, both Muslims, in the head and grievously wounded a fourth, a black Frenchman whose family is from the Antilles.
He shouted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," as he fired, a separate self-filmed video viewed by investigators indicated.
Four days later, using the same pistol and again videotaping the killings, he shot dead three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi in front of the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse.
