France: Extremism and Terrorism

On September 15, 2021, French President tweeted French forces had killed Adnan al-Sahrawi, leader of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) and a “major enemy” of France. Macron provided no further details of the operation. French Defense Minister Florence Parly elaborated French forces, operating under the country’s Opération Barkhane anti-terrorism force in Africa, used a drone to kill Sahrawi on his motorbike on the border between Mali and Niger in August. Calling the strike an “opportunistic hit,” Parly said the drone observed two armed individuals on a motorbike and eliminated them. According to Macron, Sahrawi had personally ordered an August 9, 2020, attack that killed six French aid workers at a giraffe reserve in Niger. (Sources: , France 24, BBC News)

On September 8, 2021, French authorities began a trial of Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving suspected attacker from the November 13, 2015, ISIS attacks in , which killed 130 and wounded more than 350 others. In addition to Abdeslam, 19 others were put on trial on charges of aiding in the preparation of the attacks. When asked to identify himself under oath, Abdeslam instead recited the Islamic declaration of faith that Allah is God and Mohammad is his servant. Abdeslam told the court he gave up his day job “to become an Islamic State soldier.” (Sources: , New York Times)

On July 9, 2021, Macron announced that France will withdraw more than 2,000 troops from an anti-extremism force in Africa’s Sahel region and redirect its military presence to specialized forces instead. Macron announced France’s military force in the Sahel, Opération Barkhane, would wind down by the first quarter of 2022. In the coming months, France will reduce its force from 5,000 to somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 troops in the region. In the next six months, the French military will shut down bases in Timbuktu, Tessalit, and Kidal in Mali and will instead focus on border areas where Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso meet. However, despite Macron’s announcement of the impending suspension of Opération Barkhane—France’s seven-year anti-terror mission in Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Niger, and Mauritania—France continued joint military operations and national advisory missions with Mali on July 6 given the increasing number of jihadist attacks in the country. Additionally, given the suspension of Opération Barkhane in 2022, France will increase its involvement in the Takuba Task Force, an international effort focusing on supporting and cooperating with armies in the region. (Sources: Associated Press, Euronews, CNN, Reuters, France 24, Reuters, Voice of America)

In the aftermath of a terror attack in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on October 16, 2020—in which Russian immigrant Abdoulakh Azorov decapitated history teacher Samuel Paty for displaying caricatures of the Prophet —French authorities ordered the closure of three Islamist groups operating in the country. French law allows the Council of Ministers to ban organizations by decree if they incite discrimination, hatred, or violence against a person or a group of people. Macron’s government has also been increasingly concerned about the growing threat of the far right and populism in France. In addition to the October 2020 incident in Avignon, Generation Identity has recently held anti-immigrant protests at France’s borders, going as far as setting up faux border checkpoints and attempting to intercept immigrant ships at sea. In February 2021, the government announced the forthcoming dissolution of Generation Identity for promoting “openly hateful rhetoric,” which “contributes to heightening tensions within the national community” and “provokes violent attacks.” T