France’s prime minister has rejected suggestions that anti-terrorism authorities fell down on the job in monitoring a radical Islamist who gunned down seven people in a wave of killings that revolted the country.

A Syrian-born Spaniard alleged to be the financial mastermind of an al-Qaida cell that helped plot the September 11 attacks in the US in 2001 said today he had never given “a single peseta” toward a jihad, or holy war.

IT’s already been dubbed Saving Private Lynch.