The threat to the country remains “very high”. International tensions weigh heavily, but the increasingly young jihadist apprentices mainly draw their propaganda from the heart of social networks or by communicating via messaging.
Three days of terror which left their mark on France. On January 7, 2015, at 11:30 a.m., the Chérif brothers and Saïd Kouachi entered the premises of Charlie Hebdo and killed eleven people, including eight members of the editorial staff of the satirical weekly. They run away screaming “We have avenged the prophet!” and kill police officer Ahmed Merabet. They were finally killed two days later, on January 9, by the GIGN.
That day, Amedy Coulibaly was killed at the Hyper Cacher store at Porte de Vincennes, in Paris, where he was holding 30 hostages, four of whom died. The day before, he had murdered municipal police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe in Montrouge. These thirty-six deadly hours sealed the unprecedented alliance of two branches of jihadist terrorism. Because during his hostage-taking, Amedy Coulibaly said he was acting on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) group and claimed to be in contact with the Kouachi brothers, who claimed to be part of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Ten years later, the specter of Islamist terrorism still hangs over France. As of December 1, the share of jihadist procedures, increasing in 2024 compared to the two previous years, represented 87% of the procedures followed by the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (Pnat), according to information communicated by the public prosecutor to franceinfo.
However, as Pnat prosecutor Olivier Christen explained on September 11, “the so-called projected threat, that is to say the capacity to send a group which would attack the territory, based on the model of what could have been known in 2015, does not seem the most significant today 'today, although it is not impossible.' The services engaged in the fight against terrorism, in France and abroad, have learned, little by little, to contain it.
Can the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria on December 8 change the situation? Questions arise about the French who left to wage jihad. Some are imprisoned, while others have joined the ranks of the rebellion. “All of them are the subject of legal investigations today, all are subject to arrest or search warrants. If they were to leave Syria today, these devices would make it possible to apprehend them”assured, two days after the rebels entered Damascus, the anti-terrorism prosecutor on France 2.
In reality, underlines the Pnat, “it is premature to comment on a possible resurgence of the projected threat following the takeover of power in Syria” by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. “The risk is over the coming months and weeks, depending on the scenario that will occur,” underlined Hugo Micheron, doctor in political science, on December 10 on RTL. “This regional upheaval could allow the Islamic State organization to reconstitute its troops and its means, as well as competing jihadist groups to assert themselves,” analyse The Worldwhich revealed, on December 16, notes reporting “fears” from the French intelligence services.
At the end of the year, the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau judged, in a note mainly addressed to the prefects, that “the very high level of the terrorist threat” continued “to weigh on our country”. In a telegram that franceinfo was able to consult on Monday January 6, the minister renewed his message and asked them to strengthen vigilance measures during large gatherings, after the car attacks perpetrated in Germany and the United States. United. France raised the Vigipirate plan to its maximum level on March 24 and extended it until the fall, in particular because of the Paris 2024 Games. A decision which followed the deadly and unprecedented attack in a room together in the suburbs of Moscow, claimed by the Islamic State of Khorasan, the medieval name for Afghanistan which encompassed northern Iran. This branch of IS in Central Asia, which has carried out several attempted attacks in France, represents the most worrying threat to the Pnat to date.
In fact, ISIS has existed in other forms since 2019, which marked the fall of its “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq. A turning point which led to a reconfiguration of the jihadist terrorist threat, with, according to the Pnat, a “feminization and a rejuvenation of the movement”, “a rise of Salafism and a trivialization of jihadism”, as well as a “emergence of social networks as an accelerator of the diffusion of propaganda”.
“The nature of the threat has evolved: it is more diffuse, because individuals likely to take action are radicalized on social networks, with propaganda carried out from abroad”summarizes for franceinfo Jenny Raflik, professor of contemporary history at the University of Nantes and author of Terrorism in France, a history, 19th-21st century. According to her, there is no longer any threat “exogenous”that is to say which comes from outside, as was the case for the attacks of 2015, nor “endogenous”, which comes from individuals who live in France and have been immersed in jihadist propaganda, but “a combination of both”.
“There are no longer any sponsors, strictly speaking, but those who produce the propaganda do so with an act in the back of their mind.”
Jenny Raflik, professor of contemporary historyat franceinfo
Thus, the debates during the trials of terrorist attacks undermined the “lone wolf” thesis, which had emerged in 2012 during the attacks perpetrated by Mohamed Merah. “With the internet, we have virtual links in groups and several 'lone wolves' are in contact”analyse Jenny Raflik.
“If the year 2015 was marked by a commando logic, projected from the Iraqi-Syrian zone, the Islamic State stands out today more for its capacity to inspire violent action projects among our nationals”confirms to AFP the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI). From now on, the national anti-terrorism prosecution is speaking “an inspired threat or, depending on the case, an ordered threat”.
The last planned attack in France in 2024 – the ninth – reflects this new form of threat: three students in computer science, psychology and chemistry, suspected of having planned violent action in France with explosive devices, were put under investigation and placed in pre-trial detention on December 7. In contact via encrypted messaging, they were arrested in Nantes then in Nîmes (Gard). They did not have a definitive target, but mentioned in their discussions the headquarters of the DGSI in Levallois-Perret (Hauts-de-Seine) or the town hall of Poitiers (Vienne), because of the symbolic battle of 732. They are aged 19 to 20.
A few months earlier, it was an 18-year-old from Chechnya who wanted to lead an attack in Saint-Etienne (Loire), near the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium, during the Olympic events. On his phone, investigators found exchanges with individuals known to the intelligence services, who monitor Chechen networks. Since 2018, terrorists of North Caucasian origin have committed three attacks in France, including the assassinations of professors Dominique Bernard and Samuel Paty. The latter was killed by Abdoullakh Anzorov, a radical Chechen Islamist, also only 18 years old.
Anti-terrorist justice underlines this trend towards the rejuvenation of those implicated in violent action projects. “While in recent years, minors indicted in terrorist matters could be counted on the fingers of one hand, 15 minors were indicted in 2023 and 18 in 2024,” notes the Pnat, which nevertheless recognizes lacking “backward” Currently “to accurately categorize the typical profile of minors ready to commit terrorist actions”. Nevertheless, he observes, “a constant emerges” : most of these radicalized minors are “fans of ultra violent content, of a warlike or pornographic nature”estimates the anti-terrorism prosecution.
“There is no longer any anchorage in Salafist mosques, because they are heavily monitored. In sports halls, this is less and less the case. Clearly, virtual spaces have become the place of radicalization”exhibits at franceinfo Xavier Crettiez, professor of political science at Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Co-author of the audit report Sociology of French jihadism (document PDF)produced for the prison administration, it analyzed in 2023 the profiles “more than 350 jihadist terrorists incarcerated”, then, in November 2024, those of 174 people incarcerated for common law crimes, but suspected of radicalization.
“We are dealing massively with French people, scattered across the territory, from large but also medium-sized cities, without this overlapping with the map of urban delinquency or that of migratory flows”develops Xavier Crettiez, who explains this “capillarity of jihadism” by the ease of accessing the internet everywhere. A large part has “a strong religious practice”. However, the political science professor opposes the idea that “prison would be the ENA of jihad”, “no longer real at all” according to him. “Prison is not an element of jihadist production,” he assures.
This specialist is, however, well aware that the people sentenced to the longest sentences are still incarcerated and will be freed within two or three years. “The recidivism rate of terrorists exists, but it is low because colossal resources are deployed to monitor them when they leave prison,” believes Xavier Crettiez.
However, these profiles remain “a subject of priority concern” for the anti-terrorism prosecution. The Pnat recalls that Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, the author of the attack on the Bir-Hakeim bridge in Paris, on December 2, 2023, had already been sentenced to five years in prison for a planned attack in 2016 at the Defense. While Derek R., who took a taxi driver hostage on the night of July 16 to 17, 2024, in La Ferté-Bernard (Sarthe), had just been released from prison for acts of theft and violence. Known, moreover, for his jihadist leanings, he was followed by the intelligence services since his incarceration. During the trip, Derek R. allegedly made pro-Hamas comments.
“Terrorism evolves in waves and is porous to the geopolitical context.”
The national anti-terrorism prosecutionat franceinfo
The Pnat considers that “the resurgence of tensions in the Middle East is an aggravating factor” of the situation. Since the unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, only one violent act of an anti-Semitic nature has been recorded on French territory: the attack on a synagogue in La Grande-Motte (Hérault), late august. “We are constantly witnessing a renewal of the terrorist threat”underlines the national anti-terrorism prosecution, which concludes that today, it is “diverse and protean.”
