The president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella calls for the expulsion of foreigners monitored for radicalization to relieve the intelligence services. But he gets confused about the numbers.
Jordan Bardella presents it as a way to save time and resources. Guest of franceinfo 8:30 a.m. Wednesday October 25, 2023, the president of the National Rally requested the expulsion of foreigners monitored for radicalization in France, two weeks after the terrorist attack which cost the life of literature professor Dominique Bernard in Arras.
“There are people who are being followed for their proximity to Islamist fundamentalism in our country, who are foreigners on the territory of the French Republic, they must be expelled preventively, which will allow the French intelligence services to have a lot fewer people to watch over”he assures.
The president of the RN gives figures. According to him, “there are 4,200 radicalized foreign individuals” And “half of the people who are registered with the FSPRT [le Fichier des signalements pour la prévention de la radicalisation à caractère terroriste] who are being followed for radicalization, are foreigners”. True or false ?
Some 4,263 foreigners monitored for radicalization
The first figure given by Jordan Bardella is true: there are around 4,200 foreigners who are being monitored for radicalization in France. Precisely, there are even 4,263 of them.
This figure was revealed by the Ministry of the Interior, a few days after the Arras attack, the main suspect of which is a Chechen national. It corresponds to the number of foreigners registered in the FSPRT, a file created in 2015 after the attack on Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher to better centralize the monitoring of radicalized people.
One in five people followed for radicalization is a foreigner
But, the second figure given by the president of the RN is false. No, half of the people registered with the FSPRT are not foreigners.
In total, the FSPRT contains 20,120 names, which have been entered there gradually since the creation of the file and have remained there ever since. Among them, as mentioned above, 4,263 are foreigners. They therefore do not represent half of the people monitored but a fifth. In other words, one in five people followed for terrorist radicalization in France is a foreigner.
Two thirds in a regular situation
The Ministry of the Interior provided other information on their profiles and their monitoring. First, two thirds of these foreigners (2,852) are in a legal situation and therefore have the right to be in France. 1,411 are therefore in an irregular situation.
But among these 1,411, 922 have already been expelled in the last eight years, since the creation of the file, according to the government. 489 are still in France, of which 214 are in pre-trial detention or deprived of their liberty and 82 under house arrest.
Finally, there remain 193 foreigners in an irregular situation and monitored for radicalization who are not subject to any particular measure. Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, launched a review of their situation to speed up their expulsion. The minister’s entourage estimates that 85 of them “are probably no longer on the territory”.