As the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015 opens this Wednesday, the question of the terrorist threat in France is legitimately coming back to the fore. In what form does it exist? Is it particularly strong today? Are some targets more at risk than others?
Two months ago, in July, the Interior Ministry Gérald Darmanin sent a note to the prefects, warning them of an increased terrorist threat in France. A message in reaction to a video posted on the Internet by al-Qaida propagandists, in which France is accused of waging a war against Islam. The illustration that the country remains a target for jihadist groups.
If most specialists agree that the terrorist risk from outside is much less important than it may have been several years ago, it nevertheless exists. “There are always cells around the world that want to strike the West,” recalls Cédric Mas, president of the Action Resilience institute, whose the last report “Jihadist terrorism against France (2012-2021)” has just been released. “Projects are regularly mounted and the authorities manage to stop them.”
A threat from within
However, the main threat is described as endogenous. That is to say carried by people already present in the territory, without the support of an organization based abroad. This is the profile often described as a “lone wolf”, although it is rare that the individual has not received any help, voluntary or not, in his process of taking action (supply of weapons, accommodation…).
The latest attacks in France underline the preponderance of this form of threat. Last May, a policewoman was stabbed to death in Rambouillet (Yvelines) by a Tunisian, who arrived in the country in 2009, unknown to the services but whose radicalization seemed indisputable. In October 2020, three people were killed in the Notre-Dame basilica in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) by another illegal Tunisian immigrant, who arrived in France to work there, according to his family. A few months earlier, in April, in Romans-sur-Isère (Drôme), a Sudanese, who had been granted refugee status in 2017, fatally attacked two passers-by, shouting “Allah Akbar”. If each time, the suspects are foreigners, they had not initially come to France with the objective of committing their act and do not seem (the investigations are still in progress) to have acted within the framework of an action prepared by a terrorist group.
“The problem with this threat is that it no longer relies on an organization whose members we know and which we can monitor and stop,” explains Cédric Mas. “It is very dispersed and therefore different from one case to another”.
France better protected than in 2015?
“Currently, one could qualify the terrorist risk of” phantom threat “: it is not visible but always there”, he continues. “It even remains higher than what one might think”. All the more so when the news is related to the subject. This had been the case with the attack on the Basilica of Nice, at the time of the trial of the attack against Charlie Hebdo. With the opening of that of November 13, 2015, fears of a passage to the act are therefore rekindled. Recently, a file S of Noisy-le-Sec was for example arrested by the police for having ordered on the internet a Kalashnikov and ammunition. He had many jihadist texts at home. To this French news, Georges Fenech, former examining magistrate and president of the parliamentary commission of inquiry devoted to the attacks of November 13, also adds that of the 20 years of September 11. “All this creates a context,” he abounds.
Proof of this real fear, Gérald Darmanin sent the prefects of Paris and Bouches-du-Rhône a telegram demanding “a high level of vigilance” during the trial. A letter which follows another request, just a week ago, concerning “a maximum of police presence” in front of the synagogues until the end of September, for the duration of the month of the Jewish holidays. The Minister of the Interior justified this missive because of the “very high level of the terrorist threat”. There therefore seems to be no doubt that the authorities are currently fearful of an attack.
The Jewish community, the police, the churches, can indeed be considered as privileged targets in the event of a passage to the act. But could an attack as massive and deadly as the one carried out at the Bataclan almost six years ago happen again? “If everyone is doing their job, there is no reason for it to start again,” reassures Cédric Mas. While qualifying that we “never know”. “Today, in France, we are better protected than in 2015, yes,” said Georges Fenech for his part. “But we are still far from the mark (…). It will probably take another decade before we can say “we won a war”. So far we’ve won a battle, no doubt. But not the war ”.