Millennial Jihadism and Terrorism in France: Al Qaeda and Islamic State Foreign Fighters, Assimilation Among Young Muslims, Origins of Radicalization and Marginalization, Charlie Hebdo Attack

This fascinating report from March 2019 has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. The volume of extreme Islamic-inspired attacks in France in 2012-2016, the hundreds of French foreign fighters supporting the Islamic State's ruthless violence in the Levant, and the low level of assimilation to mainstream French culture by young French Muslims have quickly become major concerns for the security and stability of France. The French Republic is a European sovereign nation with inclusive immigration policies, an active proponent of full assimilation for minorities and immigrants, and a non-participant in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. The French government and the nation's citizens therefore did not anticipate this spate of jihadist terrorism. This thesis investigates the large-scale terror attacks, including the backgrounds and motivations of the perpetrators, and then assesses relevant analytical explanations by prominent French scholars of the increase in religion-inspired violence in France in 2012-2016. These scholars' views differ on the origins of radicalization and terrorist behavior, and notably in regard to the role of religion in terms of social alienation and marginalization. By neutralizing the disruptive message at the source, deradicalizing the French prison system, and properly censoring the online channels of manpower recruitment, the French government can enhance its ability to prevent the infection of today's youth by this radical doctrine of salvation.

This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

A new era of terror in France began in 2012 when a French citizen with ethnic ties to North Africa went on a killing spree in the south of the country. The subsequent sequence of attacks illustrated a new and more sinister level of religious-inspired violence in the French homeland. Homegrown extremists, born and raised or naturalized and inculcated into French culture and society conducted these attacks. These attacks, exceptionally violent and claimed by known terrorist organizations, sent a shockwave of terror into the heart of the French Republic. Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) enthusiastically applauded and emphatically claimed these unprecedented and sadistically vicious attacks. The violence escalated dramatically in January 2015, when three French citizens conducted a well-coordinated assault against the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. Each of these Frenchmen—radical extremists—fought to his death against local law enforcement. Later that same year, the violence escalated yet again. The terrorist attacks on the Stade de France and the Bataclan Concert Hall in Paris represented a new level of violence, one not witnessed in France since the Nazi occupation of World War II. The violence reached its zenith in 2016 with the catastrophic attack directed against the crowds gathering to celebrate Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in the southern French city of Nice. When all these large-scale and religiously inspired terrorist attacks concluded, jihadists were responsible for taking the lives of more than 247 people and injuring more than 800. These homegrown terrorists, responsible for the large-scale jihadi violence in France from 2012 to 2016, represented a new demographic of terrorism, a younger population of French citizens responsible for committing Islamic-inspired violence against their own government.