LENS: France’s efforts to combat homegrown terrorism are in turmoil: A group home intended to turn young people away from Islamic extremism sits empty. A move to segregate prison inmates suspected of jihadi sympathies has been abandoned. And the head of a program to prevent radicalization has been convicted of misusing funds.
The results are both disappointing and unsurprising, according to a French senator who co-wrote a report last month highly critical of an effort she says was devised in haste and has proved largely ineffective.
« We spread money around because we didn’t have time and we had to communicate something, we had to show something, » Esther Benbassa said. « The time that this takes to work is long, very long. »
With France now retooling its efforts, the danger of extremism from within was underscored by last week’s rampage in London and the previous week’s assault on soldiers at Paris’ Orly airport. Authorities said both attacks were carried by ex-convicts who may have been radicalized behind bars.
France is not the only country reconsidering how it responds to radicalization. Britain’s Prevent program, which seeks to identify residents at risk of being radicalized, has been criticized by civil rights groups and a U.N. expert who said it stifles free speech.
France’s experiments with preventing radicalization were conceived during a state of emergency following the extremist attacks on the staff of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in January 2015 and the Paris bombings and shootings that left 130 people dead 10 months later. The ad hoc attempts focused on the prison system, a key incubator for many jihadis, and programs that tried to target those already on the path to extremism.
They did not go as hoped.
Sonia Imloul, the former head of a de-radicalization program that had the support of the French Interior Ministry, was convicted of misuse of funds this month. According to testimony, she had government funds for the organization deposited directly into her account. She received a four-month suspended prison sentence. […]
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