“France practices a predictive concept of the fight against terrorism”

Le 10^e anniversary of the attacks of January 2015, against Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher, offers a retrospective look at the contemporary history of French anti-terrorism. With a text every two years since 1986, the fight against terrorism illustrates an early repressive and preventive approach, then a more recent extension towards a predictive approach, using the resources of the administrative police, and a dissemination in other fields criminal law, like the fight against drug trafficking.

Very early on, France wanted to harshly repress terrorism without using exceptional measures. In 1986, following a large-scale campaign of attacks, the government created original legislation, included in common law, in order to move away from exceptional laws, such as the former State Security Court, but derogatory, in order to fight against the specificity of terrorism. The law of September 9, 1986 constitutes the historical basis of the national model, which is based on several foundations: specific legislation on the procedural level, judgment and punishment; legislation marked by the centralization of prosecutions and investigations and by the combination of classic offenses and a specific intention based on a definition of terrorism.

In 1996, at the end of a new terrorist campaign, this legislation was supplemented by the law of July 22, 1996, which established an original incrimination, criminal association in relation to a terrorist enterprise (AMT). The AMT makes it possible to prosecute individuals solely on the observation of material facts materializing a criminal plan, before the actual carrying out of an attack. For many years, this preventive system demonstrated its effectiveness through the absence of major attacks on French soil, while being valued for its respect for fundamental freedoms, unlike the American response after 2001, and this thanks to the constant presence of the judicial judge in the procedure.

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