Last Updated: Thursday, November 2, 2006 | 3:34 PM ET  CBC News 

Dozens of Muslim employees at France’s largest airport have been stripped of their security clearance under suspicion that they visited terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, airport officials said.  Officials at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris took away 72 security passes after more than 100 baggage handlers and cleaners were placed under surveillance for several months. 

One employee is alleged to be an acquaintance of would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid, while another employee was linked to an Algerian resistance group with alleged ties to al-Qaeda, airport officials said.  “There is a suggestion that there were a large number of extreme individuals working near a large number of aircraft that fly all over Europe and into North America,” the CBC’s David Common said Thursday. 

The employees said they are being targeted because they are Muslim. Some have threatened to sue the airport.  Airport officials dismissed claims of racism, citing that about 20 per cent of the 18,000 employees are Muslim, while fewer than 100 were suspended. One man of Sikh origin is among those. 

The suspensions were handed out about a month ago, but the information didn’t come to light until now, Common said.  The employees’ labour union was backing the employees in their attempts to have their security clearance reinstated, but there is little talk of a widespread job action such as has paralyzed France in the past, Common said. 

Charles de Gaulle Airport is the second-busiest airport in Europe, behind London’s Heathrow Airport, and handled more than 53 million passengers last year, according to Airports Council International.  The surveillance investigation was sparked by a French journalist’s book released six months ago that claimed the airport had major security problems. 

The suspensions come as racial tensions are running high in France, which recently marked the first anniversary of fiery riots in the country’s poorer neighbourhoods.  The riots spurred controversy about race and racism in France because many of the people involved in the riots were the children or descendents of immigrants, especially from former colonies in Africa and Muslim North Africa. 

Many children of immigrants feel they don’t have the same number of opportunities in French society because of their religion, skin colour or non-French names.