Published 14 Oct 08

France's War with the Jihadists, according to its Minister of Interior

by Walid Phares, Ph.D.
World Defense Review columnist

France's war with the Jihadists is more intense than what Americans or Europeans would think. As French troops are engaging the Taliban in Afghanistan and being often attacked, Jihadi cells are targeting the national French territory as well as French presence in the Sahel (north African Sahara). In a recent interview with Le Figaro, Michèle Alliot-Marie, French Minister of the Interior made significant revelations. At my last European lectures tour I met with French defense and counter terrorism officials and experts, as well as with French legislators, particularly those members sitting on the Afghanistan committee in the National Assembly. My findings, which I will share on CTB in the near future, correspond to Minister Alliot Marie's especially with regarding the targeting of French Homeland Security.

Jihadi cells on French Territory

Among the statements made by Alliot Marie was the revelation that "members of a terrorist group in Central Asia have recently been arrested in Mulhouse, (France) where they sent money and equipment for Jihad. At Toulouse and in eastern France extremists were arrested while maintaining paramilitary training." This shows that active Jihadi cells are indeed deploying inside France, as they are inside many other Western European countries. The Minister said: "I can tell you that 89 Islamic activists were arrested in France in 2007. And that 55 others were arrested on our soil since the beginning of the year." Thus, in less than two years, about 144 Jihadist were arrested in France which by analytical projections would put the numbers of potential Salafi Terrorists in the thousands.

Recruitment is comparable

Asked about the recruitment factories, Alliot Marie said "French prisons are a place of privileged recruitment for Islamist radicals. It's one of my concerns. I come, moreover, to propose to my European counterparts to develop a handbook on Islamism in prison to inform security professionals on how to detect and prevent this type of recruitment." Thus France's prison system is not that different – in terms of being an incubator – from the UK's or the United States'. The minister also indicated that "Certain problem areas in our suburbs also remain choice target for Salafist activities. The youth are then sent to theological education in the Muslim world and attend Koran schools, like the madrassas of Pakistan, Egypt and Yemen." Again, we can see clearly the nature of the international system established by the Jihadi Salafists which applies in France, other European countries, and in America, as well. Which undermines the theories that the bulk of Jihadi indoctrination system is not unified nor is it universal. For France, having the largest demography of Jihadi Salafists, is revealing that the recruitment-indoctrination process is some what comparable. Obviously, the language, local realities are always different.

Countries at a Jihadi risk

On another level, Alliot Marie list names for five countries it describes "at risk". She names them: "Like Pakistan or Yemen, we do communicate, in agreement with the airlines, the names and dates of departure and arrivals of passengers reported as dangerous. We want to extend this watch to other countries and to flights with a stopover, which would prevent, for example, going through Switzerland when coming from Pakistan in order to cover up tracks. Finally, we would like to know if passengers travel alone or accompanied. It's important to prevent hijacking of planes." Such a statement is surprising as many critics in the US blast Washington for establishing lists of passengers from countries at risk while claiming that Europeans do not. Now we hear the French Minister of Interior clarifying that these lists exist and that they are part of the French national security apparatus. This shows that the prevention policy in a country very sensitive to civil liberties, such as France, can work as a component of counter terrorism measures.

Sahel and internet Jihadists

Two other areas of confrontation with al Qaeda are the Sahel in Africa and on internet. The Minister said: "AQMI threatens today French interests throughout the Maghreb and its influence extends to the Sahel." She stated that "... a more important danger is that the terrorists have changed tactics. Several leads of the Gulf countries have confided in me that attacks organized well in advance are yielding to opportunistic attacks, unplanned and committed by individuals indoctrinated through the internet. These last ones are sometimes not even part of a network. This new threat is therefore much more difficult to identify and follow up on." Here again, another ingredient calling for attention internationally: What I have coined Mutant Jihad in my 2005 book Future Jihad, which has been described as "homegrown terrorism," once again presents the feature of indoctrination as a root cause. This finding by the French Government should give the Counter Terrorism community across the Atlantic more indicators that the Jihadi ideology remains in the center of the movement globally, even if regional interests are signaled here and there.

But I must admit that the most indicative statement made by Minister Alliot Marie is her call to create a "handbook on Islamism" to be used inside the prison system to allow authorities to detect the growth of Jihadi or Salafi ideology. If anything, this bold move shows the precariousness of the recently developed assertions – both in Brussels and in Washington – that words that detect the ideology shouldn't be used. Here we have the Minister of Interior of the French Republic – a country that has more experience with Salafism than any other Western nation – urging just the opposite: The production of a manual that would precisely find and use all words possible that would help in finding the radicals. This comes as an additional and heavy evidence that the architects of the so-called Lexicon disseminated across the US Bureaucracy is not only counterproductive, but is actually dangerous for the efforts in counter-terrorism to detect the enemy ideology. While one of Europe's largest democracies is heading towards winning that battle of words by actually using them and understanding them, the most powerful democracy in the War on Terror has abandoned one of the most efficient tool to "see" the enemy, and to educate its own public about it.

Note that the French Minister uses these terms in a very precise way. She used "Islamists" when needed and Salafists when she wanted to be more specific about the doctrine. In France, as I noted through my discussions this summer and as we can read widely in the media and academia, the terms Jihadists, Islamists and Salafists are used with confidence and on solid academic grounds. Furthermore, French-Muslim intellectuals and officials use these terms very naturally, as these words are well understood in the Muslim community of France, the largest in Europe, unlike what some apologists claim in the United States: That these words, allegedly, touch the sensitivities of the community. However, the French use of these words is very focused and avoids the hyphenations and generalizations, which can indeed have a negative impact on the cultural dialogue.

In conclusion, the French battle with Salafi Jihadism is widening, though not well publicized overseas. In the next months and years, it is expected that escalation would cover the areas mentioned by the French Minister: Afghanistan, Sahel and North Africa, as well as France itself.

See the full interview in Le Figaro here:lefigaro.fr/politique/

— Dr. Walid Phares is Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, D.C., and a visiting scholar at the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels. He is the author of the recently released book, The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad; and of Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West (2006) and The War of Ideas: Terrorist Strategies against the West (2007), available at www.walidphares.com.
    Dr. Phares holds degrees in law and political science from Saint Joseph University and the Lebanese University in Beirut, a Masters in international law from the Universite de Lyons in France and a Ph.D. in international relations and strategic studies from the University of Miami.
    He has taught and lectured at numerous universities worldwide, practiced law in Beirut, and served as publisher of Sawt el-Mashreq and Mashrek International. He has taught Middle East political issues, ethnic and religious conflict, and comparative politics at Florida Atlantic University until 2006. He has been teaching Jihadi strategies at the National Defense University since 2007.
    Dr. Phares has written eight books on the Middle East and published hundreds of articles in newspapers and scholarly publications such as Global Affairs, Middle East Quarterly, the Journal of South Asian and Middle East Studies and the Journal of International Security. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, BBC, al Jazeera, al Hurra, al Arabiya, as well as on many radio broadcasts.
    Aside from serving on the boards of several national and international think tanks and human rights associations, Dr. Phares has testified before the US Senate Subcommittees on the Middle East and South East Asia, the House Committees on International Relations and Homeland Security and regularly conducts congressional and State Department as well as European Parliament and UN Security Council briefings.

Visit Dr. Phares on the web at walidphares.com and defenddemocracy.org.

© 2008 Walid Phares

Walid Phares story archive

NOTE: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not represent the opinions of World Defense Review and its affiliates. WDR accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the accuracy or inaccuracy of the content of this or any other story published on this website. Copyright and all rights for this story (and all other stories by the author) are held by the author.