The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office has opened a judicial investigation targeting a 16-year-old young man for “terrorist criminal association with the aim of committing crimes against people”. He was indicted and placed in pre-trial detention.
A French teenager of Chechen origin, aged 16, was indicted and placed in pre-trial detention last week for a planned terrorist attack in France of jihadist inspiration, reported Tuesday evening, November 12 AFP a source close to the matter. He was arrested on November 5 on the outskirts of Le Mans, in Sarthe, according to Le Figaro, and had carried out research on different places which could be considered targets, including a synagogue in Le Mans.
The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) confirmed the opening of a judicial investigation on Friday for “terrorist criminal association with the aim of committing crimes against people.” The accused, born in 2008, “was indicted on this charge and placed in pre-trial detention,” added the Pnat, refusing to communicate more details on the motivations for this proposed action, nor on its progress. at the time of the arrest.
Thursday, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau spoke of a foiled attack “some time ago” what would have tried to commit “a very dangerous individual on the verge of taking action.” However, it is impossible to link the two cases at this stage.
The various actors in the fight against terrorism in France regularly warn of the increase in the number of minors implicated in 2023 and 2024 in France in cases of terrorism of a radical Islamist nature. It is “a phenomenon […] relatively new” and in “very strong increase”, said anti-terrorism prosecutor Olivier Christen in mid-July.
“We have 14 minors who have been indicted since the start of the year when there have been 15 over the whole of 2023” et “two to three per year” before, he observed at that moment. These minors implicated “have enrolled in projects which are beginning to be very constructed of taking action either on their own […]or in connection with others » people, he assured.
Chechnya
Since 2018, several cases of terrorism, including three attacks, have also involved jihadists in France from Russian republics in the North Caucasus, mainly from Chechnya. The knife attack in the Opera district of the capital in May 2018 by Khamzat Azimov, the assassination in Yvelines of Samuel Paty in October 2020 by Abdoullakh Anzorov, currently tried by the special assize court in Paris, and, on October 13, 2023, that of Dominique Bernard in Arras (North) by Mohammed Mogouchkov have the common point of having been committed by radicalized young people from this region.
The last arrests for a planned violent action in France date back to mid-October. A 22-year-old Afghan, committed to the ideology of the Islamic State according to the anti-terrorism prosecution, was indicted and then imprisoned, suspected of having “fomented” and “violent action project” in a football stadium or shopping center.
During the period of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, three attacks were foiled, according to the authorities. Two young men, aged 18 and from Gironde, were indicted on July 27, suspected of having created a group on social networks “intended to recruit” people “motivated [pour] carry out violent action” during the Olympics.
Another project targeted establishments, notably bars, around the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in Saint-Etienne, while a third emanated from a group which had planned attacks against institutions and representatives of Israel in Paris. Five people were indicted, including a minor teenager, in these cases.
The “jihadist threat represents 80% of procedures” carried out by the Pnat, recalled prosecutor Christen in mid-September.
