France: 700 youth gone to fight in Syria
The habitants of a district in Strasburg rallied on February 8, 2014, to protest the departure of young Frenchmen to fight in Syria. With the watchword “Don’t touch our youth!” 250 people gathered in a socio-cultural center of Meinau, a popular district of the Alsatian capital. “If we are here today, it is because children have been betrayed, families broken, a whole city traumatized,” declared Mohamed Benanouz, spokesman for the group of associations behind the rally, when questioned by RTL’s website. In all, rtl.fr lists a dozen young men from Strasburg who have left to fight in the jihadist ranks in Syria over the last few months.
According to the weekly Jeune Afrique’s February 14, 2014 edition, the numbers given by the intelligence services count about 700 Frenchmen in Syria, about 1 third of whom are converts. About 250 are formally enlisted in the fights against Bachar al-Assad, and at least 21 have already met their death.
An article published on February 9, by the French newspaper La Croix explains that it is “a growing phenomenon, that, according to the government, is leaving families completely disconcerted.” About 2,000 young Europeans have been enrolled to fight in Syria. La Croix quoted the testimony of a “non-practicing Catholic” who converted to Islam “to be like his friends”. At 21, he moved into an apartment and only visited his family every once in a while. His family later learned that he was really preparing his departure for Syria.
For Serge Blisko, president of the Miviludes (Inter-ministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Derivatives), as quoted by La Croix, “this is being done without any real theological basis, just under the influence of friends. Religion suddenly becomes an element of conflict with the parents.” Almost all the families, reads the article, tell the tale of “the same disintegrating of relations, the distance that they thought a result of adolescence, then the rupture.” They say that they are “stunned” or “staggered” by their child’s departure.
According to Marc Trévidic, an anti-terrorist judge questioned by the information channel BFM TV on January 21, these young men “come out of nowhere”, it is a “spontaneous generation that was not counted among the very radical groups, and that is the fruit of internet propaganda and of a depiction of the Syrian conflict that motivates them to go defend their Muslim brothers.”
According to the sociologist Samir Amghar, also quoted by La Croix, “these young men are marked by idealism. They are convinced they are fighting for a “good cause”: “They enlist with the idea that they are saving children, defending an oppressed people, dying for their ideas, in a way. There is a lot of romanticism in their approach.”
Marc Trévidic believes that there is certainly “an identity crisis, as well as a search for a life ideal.”
(sources: apic/LaCroix/rtl/Jeune Afrique/bfm tv – DICI no.292 March 14, 2014)
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