We have been warned for months, years. Researcher Hugo Micheron was the first whistleblower. In 2019, he published French Jihadism. Neighborhoods, Syria, prisons, a striking fresco on French Islamist radicalization, in which he evoked these radicalized prisoners ready to take action as soon as they were released. “Detention centers have become the first human reservoir of European jihadism, with more than 500 detainees affected,” he announced. Last September, he spoke to L’Express about these radicalized people who are “beginning to emerge” from seclusion. This Saturday, December 2, for the first time since Amedy Coulibaly and Chérif Kouachi, a person convicted of terrorism took action. Between the Quai de Grenelle and the Bir-Hakeim bridge, in Paris, Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab killed a German-Filipino tourist with a knife, shouting “Allah akbar”. He had pledged allegiance to Daesh in a video.
In 2018, he was sentenced to four years in prison for terrorist conspiracy for a planned attack at La Défense. When he was released, in 2020, he remained on S file, even though he assured, including to his family, that he had “deradicalized”. Concealment, or “taqiya”, is a classic of Islamism, the police know. In 2016, Adel Kermiche also claimed to be a “moderate Muslim” before slaughtering Father Hamel in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. It is impossible to rely on the good faith of those involved in this matter. In prison, neither deradicalization programs nor isolation have a notable effect on the ideology of the radicalized, note the security services.
There are currently around a thousand, 391 Islamist terrorist detainees and 462 common law detainees susceptible to radicalization, exactly, to worry the intelligence services. Around a hundred are due to be released in the next twelve months. How can we prevent them from acting out? Intelligence tries to track them, within the limits of the rule of law. They may be required to report to the police station, up to once a day, or to wear an electronic bracelet. Their interactions on social networks are observed. Signs of violent intent are tracked. Almost always, intelligence manages to stay one step ahead. The example of Rajabpour-Miyandoab shows that zero risk does not exist. And not for long. Because who can say that this attack is the last of its kind?