Eight days after the police shot dead the self-confessed killer of four Jews and three French paratroopers in southwestern France, elite units on Friday raided localities in several parts of the country and detained 17 people described as Islamic militants. In the early hours, officers raided addresses in Toulouse — where the gunman, Mohammed Merah, 23, was slain after a 30-hour siege last week — in the Paris region and in southern and western cities including Nantes, French media reports said. President Nicolas Sarkozy said Kalashnikov assault rifles had been seized in the raids, which, he told Europe 1 radio, “are going to continue” and would lead to “a certain number of people” being expelled from France.