A commenter kindly translated the terrorist's words into English.

Here's what the hullaballoo's all about:

The following are the words of Mohamed Merah translated from the French:

"I missed my target ... and from then on I got back on the scooter and I drove past (the Jewish school) like that. It was not premeditated, well, I was going to do it, but when I woke up that morning it wasn't my objective."

"My aim with these attacks was to kill first of all soldiers, because these soldiers fought in Afghanistan.

"Yes, believe me that I chose you (the intelligence agent interviewing him) as a target ... My idea was to call you, get you to come and see me, and you'd have got a bullet in the head.

"I work for al-Qaida, I have superiors, I'm not alone ... I'm alone in France, I work alone here, but I was sent by al-Qaida, I was trained by the Pakistani Taliban, there's an entire organisation behind this.

"They asked me to make bombs, I didn't want to ... I told them 'train me in using a gun.'

In the Islamist training camp "there are French, Chinese, Tajiks, Afghans, Pakistanis, Americans, Germans, Spanish, all sorts."

"I took me around 10 days to find the brothers (Taliban). Because when I arrived, I wasn't allowed out, I stayed in one room, I had to wait. They didn't know who I was, where I came from. Not just anyone gets into Al-Qaeda. Praise be to God, I won their trust, I bought my gun, I was equipped.

"They offered me attacks in America, Canada, etc. And I said as I'm French, it's easier for me to attack France.

His targets included "known people, killing some diplomats, like the Indian ambassador, or press bosses in some countries."

"You think that I went to Pakistan and Afghanistan for tourism? Who is a tourist over there? 'Al harb khoudaa', you know what that means? It means 'War is deception.'"

"When you called me in for questioning (in 2011), when I was at your office, I was in contact with them (Taliban), I had found them ... I think that's one of the biggest mistakes of your career!"

"I knew there would be roadblocks, all that, and then as soon as I'd completed the operations, I'd have the guts, I'd have gone into police stations, killed the policeman at the reception, I'd have killed people in the street, military police driving around, stopped at traffic lights, I'd have laid in wait."

(I loved this part: "You think that I went to Pakistan and Afghanistan for tourism? Who is a tourist over there?"  …Well, I can think of a certain head of state who was… supposedly.)

Anyway… so reporting all that is getting a TV station in trouble in France.  How… puzzling.

--S.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/toulouse-gunmans-last-words-get-french-tv-station-in-hot-water/article4404605/

Toulouse gunman’s last words get French TV station in hot water

A major French TV station was reprimanded on Monday over its decision to broadcast leaked recordings of the last words between Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah and negotiators, hours before he was killed in a shootout with police.

The emergence of the recordings, in which Mr. Merah is heard mocking police and saying he loves death more than life, stirred up emotions still raw three months after the 23-year-old Frenchman carried out a string of deadly shootings in the name of al-Qaeda.

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France’s CSA audiovisual regulatory board summoned several TV and radio stations for having aired the tapes but reprimanded only TF1 because it broadcast them first and without sufficient warning about their potentially shocking nature. “I was shocked by the decision to air [the recordings], when I thought of the victims’ families, of those who were injured or otherwise affected by these events,” CSA president Michel Boyon told journalists at a news conference.

The reprimand does not include a fine, but obliges the station to review its practices in handling sensitive material. In case of another breach, TF1 could face a fine.