French police on Tuesday arrested eight people suspected of involvement in an alleged network that sent people to Syria to wage jihad, the interior minister said.

Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters the suspects were arrested in the area around Paris and the southeastern city of Lyon.

Last week, crack security forces arrested five people from the small town of Lunel in southern France, from where around 20 young people have left for Syria.

Some 1,400 people living in France have either joined the jihadist cause in Syria and Iraq or are planning to do so, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said last month.

France has launched several raids targeting alleged jihadists after a trio of Islamist gunmen left 17 people dead in and around Paris in a three-day rampage in January.

"Nearly a month after the attacks that hit Paris, this operation is a new show of the total determination of the forces of order... to fight relentlessly against terrorism," said Cazeneuve.

(AFP)