The State relies in particular on radicalization prevention and family support units, set up in each department, which support radicalized young people and help them reintegrate.
“They feel very guilty”. After the murder of teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras (Pas-de-Calais) by Mohammed Mogouchkov, 20 years old, a native of the Caucasian province of Ingushetia, the lawyer for his mother and one of his sisters made part of “their distress” on RTL, Monday October 23. “The sister is horrified by the facts. The mother is more ashamed”did he declare.
Parents are on the front line of their child’s radicalization processes, often worried and helpless in the face of this very delicate situation. “It takes a lot of courage for them to talk about it, they sometimes feel like they are betraying their child”observes Béatrice Bayo, director of the FNEPE associative network (National Federation of Schools, Parents and Educators).
This case is an opportunity for franceinfo to look, concretely, at the French policy for preventing radicalization, which brings together all the systems put in place to target the youngest individuals before they engage in violence. On the one hand, it is a question of identifying the profiles of those who could take action, but also of taking social care of people who have entered a process of isolation which could make them permeable to the discourse of jihadist propaganda.
Reports from parents, social workers, sports instructors, etc.
After the attacks of January and November 13, 2015, Manuel Valls, then Prime Minister, expanded in May 2016 the scope of action of the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency (CIPD) to the prevention of radicalization, the entity becoming then the CIPDR. At the same time, he promulgated the action plan against radicalization and terrorism. Two years later, in February 2018, this time a plan entirely dedicated to the prevention of radicalization was put in place: the national delinquency prevention plan.
The main challenge of prevention policy lies in the detection of suspicious profiles. Most emerge thanks to reports, which can come from families, but also from social workers, police stations and gendarmes, schools, sports instructors, etc. Everyone can report their concerns to the CNAPR (National Center for Assistance and prevention of radicalization), reachable via an online form or by a toll-free number. This system is better known to the general public under the name “Stop-jihadism”.
According to figures from the Ministry of the Interior sent to franceinfo, this platform recorded an increase in reports this year, with more than 6,000 contacts made as of September 30, 2023 compared to 6,500 for the full year 2022. At the end of the line is find national police reservists, supported by psychologists. All are placed under the responsibility of the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI). At this stage, the challenge is to assess the level of dangerousness of the report.
The prefect “master on board” in monitoring profiles
Each profile is scrutinized by the departmental evaluation groups (GED). If the investigators consider that the person presents a worrying profile, they will be the subject of an “active” file in the report file for the prevention of radicalization of a terrorist nature, which counts “around 5,100 people”, Gérald Darmanin recently declared. Most of these individuals are French, but there are also foreigners in a regular or irregular situation.
If we consider that the reported profile does not represent a real danger, but requires monitoring on a social level to anticipate a worsening of the situation, these are the radicalization prevention and family support units (CPRAF) who will take over. They are multidisciplinary: there are representatives of a wide range of State services (judicial protection of youth, national education, family allowance fund, employment center, etc.), but also of Aid social welfare for children (ASE), specialized associations, psychiatrists and, sometimes, religious representatives. The CPRAF “have above all a social role”, specifies a police officer who until recently worked for the CNAPR. So far, they have supported 6,300 people (including 5,000 young people under 25) and 2,300 families.
The GEDs, like the CPRAFs, depend directly on the authority of the prefects, who bring these bodies together between once and four times a month, and who co-chair them with the prosecutors. In these two bodies, the level of monitoring of people can be adjusted (reinforced, relaxed, put on standby or closed). “The prefect is really the master on board, he has the last word on everything and decides whether to stop or continue monitoring”notes the policeman.
Sometimes “simple conversions”
“The phenomenon of radicalization really took a turn around 2014, when we observed massive departures of young people towards the Iraqi-Syrian zone”relates Stéphane Vial, director of specialized prevention within a network of associations, whose members respond to territorial public orders to act with the most vulnerable young people. “No one saw anything coming, those involved in child protection were quite stunned, they had not seen any warning signs”he remembers.
Over the years, the security policy concerning the surveillance of potential jihadists has borne fruit: there have been fewer departures and the profiles of radicalized young people have evolved. “We have moved into self-recruitment modes,” observes Stéphane Vial.
But not all reports relate to a process of radicalization: it is up to investigators to sort them out. “We have quite a few calls concerning teenage girls suspected of becoming radicalized. But these are often simple conversions. French families, with no connection to Islam, see their daughter convert and panic”notes the police officer interviewed by franceinfo.
This observation is shared by Serge Hefez, psychiatrist in the family therapy department of the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital, in Paris, and member of one of the CPRAFs in Ile-de-France. “Many young girls are indeed in a process of Salafist religious indoctrination, certainly rigorous, but not terrorist”, he believes. These latter are “caught in complex family dynamics, with trauma or a difficult separation process, for example”. Even if they are not perceived as a direct danger for society, they still fall within the remit of the members of the CPRAF, who monitor them with a preventive approach.
Rely on the professional motivations of the person being monitored
Socio-educational staff must diagnose the needs of young people (adults or minors) by allocating them the resources available in their territory of residence: it could be psychological follow-up, a Pôle Emploi referent to help them find a job, an associative referent, etc. The objective is “to prevent the person from tipping over and reinsert them”explains a prosecutor, member of a CPRAF, who wishes to remain anonymous.
To do this, a certain number of prevention associations are trained in a method called Good Lives Model, which aims to seek sources of motivation in the person being followed, particularly professional ones, so that they commit to objectives that are meaningful to them. This model aims to lead her towards a more fulfilling life… and to get her out of the system in which she was locked up.
As for the judicial protection of youth (PJJ), which monitors minors on a criminal level, it has its own system. Each minor is followed by an educator: if he has doubts about possible adherence to the Islamist discourse, he can turn to one of the 74 secularism referents of the PJJ, distributed throughout the territory. Everyone, at their own level, must help PJJ professionals assess the situation of the minor in question and provide solutions. ” It is therefore not so much a question of specifically assigning professionals or structures to the care of this public” but of “aim for the establishment of a strong educational relationship [avec le personnel de la PJJ] which replaces that of jihadist recruiters”explains Agathe Muriot, editor in the methods and educational action office within the PJJ management.
The crucial question of training
To be able to better understand young people in the process of radicalization, emphasis has been placed in recent years on the training of personnel of all types, whether social workers, police officers and gendarmes, nursing staff, etc. This Work was notably carried out by sociologist Hasna Husseïn, president of the Prevanet association, mainly financed by local authorities.
“Since 2016, we have trained several thousand professionals. We started with prison staff, then we gradually expanded to include schools, prefectural and CAF agents…”she explains to franceinfo. “During these training courses, we deal with jihadist geopolitics, and we provide keys to understanding how to analyze a situation that would involve radical thinking.”
“Certain changes can be confused with the adolescent process. Each staff in contact with young people must have at least a minimum knowledge of religious rules”insists Dorra Mameri, researcher at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences and also a trainer on the question of radical Islam. She mainly works for Child Welfare, which has a very high turnover and therefore has a constant need for training. “ASE educators are not necessarily always equipped to detect weak signals and, when they think they have spotted something, they are afraid of making a mistake, of misinterpreting: it is very stressful for them“, she observes.
Today, Hasna Husseïn welcomes the progress made in terms of training, but regrets that it is still so poorly developed within National Education. “We invest a lot in secularism, but not enough in the prevention of radicalization”, she regrets, hoping that more resources can be released in the future.