It should be very clear IMHO; they have nothing, if they caught the group with "a bunch of hunting weapons and ammunition" then they can arrest them for that and that'd be a lot more serious ground for the argument of "intent to commit terrorist acts".
Since it seems they don't have anything, they are criminalizing normal tools and dev tools because your average reader/citizen doesn't know the difference between a hacker and a cracker, let alone the right of privacy vs conspiring. The only nice thing IMHO is that everyone uses Whatsapp and no one considers it "criminal", so by bundling Signal etc together with Whatsapp they are making themselves look like they are exaggerating for the average person.
Depending on when it occurred, traveling into Syria could be a crime in itself. France and other EU countries banned the travel to Syria unless you were associated with a limited number of groups(humanitarian, journalism, diplomatic mission etc.). Joining any warring party was explicitly prohibited.
Since it seems they don't have anything, they are criminalizing normal tools and dev tools because your average reader/citizen doesn't know the difference between a hacker and a cracker, let alone the right of privacy vs conspiring. The only nice thing IMHO is that everyone uses Whatsapp and no one considers it "criminal", so by bundling Signal etc together with Whatsapp they are making themselves look like they are exaggerating for the average person.