PARIS — The French authorities began to use new, sweeping counterterrorism powers on Monday to halt the stream of young people going to Syria, confiscating the passports of six people suspected of trying to go there to engage in terrorist activities.
The interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, announced that the ministry had taken six people’s passports under the new law and that the ministry was preparing travel bans for 40 more people.
“If French citizens leave to commit atrocities in Iraq and in Syria, when they return, they represent an even bigger danger for the national territory and they are likely to commit terrorist acts on a major scale,” Mr. Cazeneuve said.
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“One of the issues is what are they going to do if they can’t leave,” she said.
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