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.

The law, approved in November, includes a provision that allows the French authorities to impose what is in effect a travel ban on anyone they suspect of leaving the country for the purpose of engaging in terrorist activities. The ban lasts six months, at which point the government can renew it every six months for up to two years. The ban can be appealed.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/world/europe/france-confiscates-passports-to-stem-flow-of-fighters-to-syria.html?_r=0