Upon his release from prison, Armand Rajadbpour-Miyandoab, alleged perpetrator of the knife and hammer attack on Saturday December 2 in Paris, was surrounded for three years by a team of experts. A psychologist, an educator and a religious mediator took turns. Until recent months, the young man, released from prison in 2020, benefited from the individualized social reaffiliation support program (PAIRS), a tailor-made monitoring system for radicalized former prisoners.
He is, at this time, the only repeat offender out of the nearly 400 radicalized former detainees who have passed through one of the four branches in Paris, Lille or Marseille and Lyon. Today, there is no longer any question of “deradicalizing” them, explains Nicolas Valet, magistrate, national director in charge of justice issues at the SOS Solidarité Group, the association which pilots the program. From now on, actors prefer to speak of “disengagement from violence”. An eloquent lexical evolution: after several resounding failures, the State no longer really seeks to convince the Islamists of their ideological-religious false path; the objective today is more to divert them from violence.
A “fiasco”
It has been almost ten years – since the fall of 2014 – that the French state has put in place measures to curb radicalization in France. Two years after Mohammed Merah’s attacks, the country faces multiple departures in Syria and Iraq, on territory claimed by the Islamic State. The attacks of January and then November 2015 will push the public authorities to accelerate the experiments. A prevention, integration and citizenship center was opened in September 2016, at a place called Pontourny, in Beaumont-en-Véron (Indre-et-Loire). These are the heydays of “deradicalization”. This first center, which was to accommodate twenty-five people – and whose format was to be available in each region – will ultimately only accommodate nine. The “returnees” from Syria, who were originally supposed to land in these centers, will ultimately be directed to prison. A senatorial report published in 2017 criticizes the management of the executive, calling it a “fiasco”.
France then began to be confronted with the first releases from prison of those convicted of terrorism, and, already, warning signals were flashing. In 2019, researcher Hugo Micheron published French Jihadism. Neighborhoods, Syria, prisons, in which he announces that “detention centers have become the first human reservoir of European jihadism, with more than 500 prisoners concerned”. Today, the number of radicalized prisoners in the prison exceeds 900. “No European country has had to manage the issue to such proportions,” notes Mohammed Chirani, consultant in the prevention of religious radicalization. “England has reached 150 people affected, Germany less than a hundred,” he adds.
Deconstruction of an ideology
To cope, the French state first intends to assess the level of radicalization of prisoners “with a jihadist reference” – according to the vocabulary used by the prison administration. They go through a radicalization assessment unit for 15 weeks. Armand Rajabdpour-Miyandoab was evaluated by Mohammed Chirani, when the latter worked for the Ministry of Justice. At the time, the young man had the habit of transcribing “chapters and chapters” of Salafist books. “This is particularly how we understood that his ideology was intertwined with madness,” he says. “I immediately detected in him the ideological aspect of his speech, which was strongly impregnated with Salafo-jihadist concepts “.
After their assessment, the inmates are then separated into two groups. The most dangerous are placed in solitary confinement. The others are sent to a radicalization treatment area, where religious mediators try to keep them away from their violent plans. In this context, and despite the mixed results of this approach, officials are trying to make prisoners aware of the impasse represented by jihadist propaganda. “We do not work on religious beliefs but on the deconstruction of an ideology, with the help of experts in geopolitics, theology, Islamology and also in psychosocial matters,” explains Naoufel Gaied, head of the mission to fight against violent radicalization.
Dual approach
This dual approach continues upon their release: they are subject to both administrative and judicial surveillance of former prisoners, and social support. In addition to the prison integration and probation services, which monitor ex-prisoners, since 2018 the Peers program has been added, to which Armand Rajabpour-Miyadoab was subject until March of this year. The system intends to follow – on the judge’s decision – individuals prosecuted or convicted for acts of terrorism. Common law prisoners susceptible to radicalization may also be subject to it. Conversely, people assessed as being most at risk by the prison administration are not included.
If trajectories differ depending on the person, police and judicial sources confirm that the family environment – a romantic encounter, for example – or a professional project establish “barriers” which prevent taking action. “We have a medico-social approach,” explains Nicolas Valet. “Monitoring can be very intensive, and can last up to twenty hours per week.” In the event of non-compliance with the program or behavior that alerts professionals, former prisoners are likely to return to prison. The case has arisen “several times” points out Nicolas Valet. “There is no angelism among us,” assures the magistrate. “We regularly check in with the administration on each file, and the professionals are well aware of the risk of deception.”
Clue bundles
Because even if the Pairs program is praised for the absence of recidivism among its participants, it remains difficult to judge whether those concerned have really renounced their ideology and any violent action. What guarantees that a prisoner does not comply with his obligations only to be relieved of them? “Disengagement from violence is a step, but is not the vaccine,” points out Jérôme Poirot, senior civil servant, former deputy to the National Intelligence Coordinator from 2009 to 2015. There is no guarantee that their renunciation is definitive. . Double play is possible.” In Islamism, the tactic of “taqiya” or “cover-up” is well known to the intelligence services. “We know that certain very specific profiles will no longer be talked about when they leave prison. This is generally the case for very young women who left at the beginning of the Daesh years for the Iraqi-Syrian theater because they dreamed of “a better life, explains an intelligence source. They often came back realizing that they had been wrong and, after serving their sentence, broke with Islamist ideology.” For others, the security services know that their sometimes stereotypical speeches should not necessarily be taken at face value.
Former prisoners are tracked by the National Prison Intelligence Service and the DGSI. “There is no quick exit from prison,” our source continues. “The intelligence services will be responsible for monitoring a person regardless of their level of radicalization.” To detect any worrying signal, DGSI staff work to gather a bundle of clues provided by 19 state services: National Education, the Ministry of Justice, civil servants responsible for monitoring family affairs, etc. “It is by combining all these elements that we can most accurately appreciate the true deradicalization of a person,” we comment. In addition, two psychiatrists recently joined the intelligence service team in order to evaluate the different profiles.
The majority (“95%”) of the 486 prisoners convicted of acts linked to terrorism and released since 2018 are subject to individual control and surveillance measures (Micas), renewable in three-month increments. “These people are evaluated in the file for monitoring radicalized terrorist people, this evaluation is done with a number from 1 to 3, one being attributed to the most worrying profiles, three the least worrying,” it says.
Risk of dormant radicalism
Technical information, telephone tapping, sound system or even physical surveillance… A more or less sophisticated surveillance system is deployed depending on the dangerousness of the person, reinforced by the observations of professionals from the Pairs program. “These mechanisms are not used for deradicalization, but they prevent recidivism,” confirms a judicial source. Supervised by professionals, followed by the intelligence services, held for multiple meetings per week, a former detainee has less chance of escaping the vigilance of the State – and is normally quickly spotted.
Saturday’s events nevertheless demonstrated that neither this close monitoring nor the efforts deployed in terms of reintegration can prevent repeat offenses. “The surrounding context – in this case the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – risks awakening dormant radicalism,” notes Mohammed Chirani. “It’s simple: zero risk does not exist.” They also ask the question: Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab had finished his participation in the Pairs program several months ago at the time of the events. What will happen to the next radicalized repeat offenders in this case?