A 24-year-old young woman, repatriated from Syria in January, is now threatened with deportation to Algeria, where she has never been. The prefect of the North came in person to defend his position on Wednesday at the hearing before the expulsion commission of the Lille administrative court.
A young woman repatriated from Syria to France is now threatened with expulsion. Sana (the first name has been changed), now 24 years old, was taken to the territory of the Islamic State by her mother, radicalized, who had previously taken her out of school for two years without alerting the National education or social services. Sana is one of the rare “revenants” not to be prosecuted by French justice. Despite this, the prefect of the North wants him to be deported to Algeria, the country of his parents. Country she has never been to.
Sana, a victim of anxiety, was hospitalized during the night and was unable to appear at the hearing in Lille on Wednesday September 13, but the prefect was there. It is rare for a prefect to travel in person. “I come myself without hesitation”, repeated Georges-François Leclerc in front of the three magistrates. According to him, Sana was certainly born in France, but her Algerian parents never completed the forms that would have allowed her to become French at 13 years old.
An ambiguous relationship with Islamism, believes the prefect
“The law is the law”he comments and invites the judges to take “distance from the narrative developed by the defense”. For him, Sana is “a serious threat to public order and the French Republic”. Because if the courts have not initiated any proceedings against her, the prefect still considers her relationship to Islamism ambiguous. It is based on laughter expressed during the four days in police custody before the intelligence services upon his return to France in January. The prefect believes that she was elusive in her responses and did not sufficiently condemn the terrorist acts. He emphasizes that she belongs to a Roubaisian family whose “23 members went to jihad”he insists.
For Georges-François Leclerc, Sana accompanied her mother to Syria and married a fighter there. “A forced departure and marriage at 15 is synonymous with rape for a child who had never even kissed a boy”replies the young woman’s lawyer. “Not every child who grows up in a family of murderers is a murderer”, says Marie Dosé. The latter cites numerous passages from the hearings where “yes, her client laughed, but it’s a defense mechanism well known to psychiatrists”, she insists. Before explaining that“she has rarely seen a ghost cooperate so much, on the contrary, with the intelligence services, and even condemn the horrors, particularly of November 13”. Intelligence agents still come to visit him regularly in Lille because his testimony is “precious for them”adds the lawyer.
She “denounced the beatings” of her mother
This young woman describes herself as a resilient person who survived ISIS. In a text read by her lawyer, Sana declares: “I grew up in France in a tyrannical family. I suffered war, hell… My only moments of hope were when I thought about school in France when I was little and like all the other students.” Sana had only been recognized by her mother two months after her birth, she “denounced his beatings, his humiliations, his dropping out of school at 13, his confinement”. His lawyer explains that “it is precisely the hatred she harbored against this mother and her ideology that allowed her to remain combative”.
Today, Sana filed a civil suit against her and wants to change her last name. Her two daughters aged 5 and 7, born in Syria, are her driving force. They were placed with a foster family in Lille. She sees them every week. Seeing them flourish in France gives him energy. Among the latest arguments developed by the Northern prefect: Sana would interest German justice. But “as a simple witness, certainly not to implicate her”specifies Me Dosé, stunned to have to provide this essential clarification.
The prefect finally explains that one of the educators who follows Sana no longer wants to work with her because he would judge her “affabulator”. However, no document is provided to support this assertion. The head of the association, financed by the prefecture, who accompanies the young woman is present in the room. He strongly denies.
On these exchanges, the commission withdrew. She will deliver her opinion on September 27. An opinion which is advisory. If she were to be sent back to Algeria, Sana would set foot in this country for the first time where she knows no one. The prefect believes that she could be deported there with her two daughters.