Master of Arts Thesis Euroculture

University of Uppsala, Sweden

University of Göttingen, Germany

The impossible homecoming? A Study of the Evolution of the French Government’s Discourses on French ISIS returnees between 2017 and 2020.

Submitted by:

Hannah Bieber Contact details (telephone/email): [email protected]

Supervised by:

Uppsala University: Andreaz Wasniowski Göttingen University: Lars Klein

The Hague, 25/07/2021

MA Programme Euroculture Declaration

I, Hannah Bieber hereby declare that this thesis, entitled “The impossible homecoming? A Study of the Evolution of the French Government’s Discourses on French ISIS returnees between 2017 and 2020”, submitted as partial requirement for the MA Programme Euroculture, is my own original work and expressed in my own words. Any use made within this text of works of other authors in any form (e.g. ideas, figures, texts, tables, etc.) are properly acknowledged in the text as well as in the bibliography.

I declare that the written (printed and bound) and the electronic copy of the submitted MA thesis are identical.

I hereby also acknowledge that I was informed about the regulations pertaining to the assessment of the MA thesis Euroculture and about the general completion rules for the Master of Arts Programme Euroculture.

Signed ………………………………………………………….....

25/07/2021 Date ………………………………………………………………

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Abstract

Over 5,000 European citizens joined the ranks of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the early 2010s. Since the rollback of the terrorist organization in 2016, European Union (EU) member states have had to decide whether or not to repatriate these individuals who were made prisoners mainly by Iraqi, or Kurdish authorities. France, the EU country that saw the highest number of its citizens join ISIS was also directly targeted by terrorist attacks orchestrated by ISIS returnees. From 2017 to 2019, it relied heavily on a non-repatriation approach, a measure which was welcomed by the general public but criticized by human rights and legal experts. However, in 2019, the withdrawal of US troops and the Turkish offensive in North-East Syria have further destabilized the region and pushed the French government to adapt its strategy. This study aims at understanding how the Macron administration legitimized the measures it implemented to tackle the ISIS returnees phenomenon and whether its approach has evolved. Through critical discourse analysis (CDA) and by drawing from the securitization theory, this research investigates the official communications of the French government between 2017 and 2020. The data will reveal that the “low-probability, high impact” threat posed by ISIS returnees has been over-securitized. This might lead an over-perception of this threat, which could threaten the social cohesion of the country and make measures bargaining with human rights and the rule of law acceptable for the public opinion. While many contributions have analyzed the policies and laws related to the issue of ISIS returnees in the EU, few have investigated how states responded to it in their official communications. With a focus on the EU country that has been the most concerned by this phenomenon, this study will help to bridge this gap in knowledge and will have broader implications for discursive practices regarding ISIS returnees and terrorism in Europe and the West.

Keywords: ISIS returnees, Foreign Fighters, Securitization, France, Counterterrorism

Wordcount: 26,256 words

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 5 List of Figures & Tables 6 List of Abbreviations 6 Introduction 7 Chapter 1 : Understanding the ISIS Returnees Phenomenon in the EU 10 1.1) Semantic discussion: ‘Foreign (Terrorist) Fighters’, ‘Jihadists’ and ‘Returnees’ 10 1.2) ISIS Returnees in the EU: Threats & Challenges 12 1.3) Returning Pathways 16 Chapter 2: The EU’s and France’s Response to the ISIS Returnees Phenomenon 18 2.1) The EU’s Attempt to Build a Common Framework 18 2.2) Northwestern Member States’ Response to the ISIS Returnees Phenomenon 19 2.3) France’s Response to the ISIS Returnees Phenomenon 22 Chapter 3: Research Design 25 3.1) Securitization Theory: Beyond the Copenhagen School 25 3.2) Methodology: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) 28 3.3) Data Collection & Analysis 30 Chapter 4: The Securitization of French ISIS Returnees 33 4.1) Constructing Returnees as a Threat 33 4.1.1) Enemies of the State 33 4.1.2) A Life-Threatening Risk for French Citizens 34 4.1.3) The Use of a Security Grammar 37 4.2) The Response to ISIS Returnees 37 4.2.1) The Non-Repatriation Doctrine 38 4.2.2) The Criminalizing Approach 41 4.2.3) An Evolution in the Discourses? 43 Chapter 5: Influencing Variables, Indirect Securitization & Spillover Effect 47 5.1) Age & Gender as Influencing Variables 47 5.1.1) Gender as an influencing variable 47 5.1.2) The Special Treatment of Children 49 5.2) Indirect Securitization & Spill-over Effect 51 5.2.1) Indirect Securitization 51 5.2.2) Spill-over Effect 53

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Chapter 6: Discussion 57 6.1) The Over-Securitization of a “Low-Probability High-Impact” Threat? 57 6.2) Turning a blind-eye on human rights? 60 6.3) A Political Response 63 6.4) A Manifestation of the “Culture of Fear”? 64 Conclusion 66 Answers to the Research Questions 66 Limitations & Suggestions for further research 68 Findings Implications 69 References 71 Secondary Sources 71 Primary Sources 76

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Acknowledgements

This Master’s thesis is the result of several months of reflection and work, but I would never have been able to complete it on my own. I would hereby like to express my gratitude to those who have helped me throughout this journey. I would firstly like to thank my supervisors, Andreaz Wasniowski at Uppsala University and Lars Klein at the University of Göttingen, who have been instrumental throughout the whole process of writing this thesis. Their thought-provoking comments and feedback helped me to reflect critically on my work. I am also thankful to Inés Bolaños Somoano who helped me pinpoint my focus and who provided me with crucial resources which laid the ground for this research. Tack, Gracias, Grazie and merci to Justine, Carola, Alex, Laure and Francesca for helping me find a healthy balance between my work and social life and making Uppsala my second home once again. I am also grateful to those who were present despite the distance: Fatima for your wise tips and pure soul, Salomé and Justine for being the best support system since 2015 and Klaudia for empowering me all the time. João and Alicia, thank you for all the calls and your daily messages and for being there through the hardship and the happiness. Quentin, thank you for listening and for always brightening my horizons. I also want to take this opportunity to thank my family who has always been an incredible source of support for as long as I can remember. Papa, Maman, merci de votre soutien au cours de ces deux années et de ces derniers mois. Merci de m’avoir appris à être attentive et sensible au monde qui m’entoure et à toujours observer les choses d’un œil critique. Finally, I would like to express my utmost gratitude to Pavel and Alicia who have accepted to proofread this work and give me their honest and constructive criticism. I could not have dreamt of more detail-oriented proof-readers and their help has been immensely appreciated.

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List of Figures & Tables

Figure 1. Mapping of EU ISIS departees’ returning pathway……………………………………………………………..17

Figure 2. Mapping of the securitization process..……………………………………………………………………………..28

Table 1. Coding framework…………………………………………………………………………………………………….………..32

Figure 3. Mapping of the securitization of French ISIS returnees by the French government between 2017 and 2020….………………………………………………………………………………………….……………………………….…58

List of Abbreviations

CDA Critical Discourse Analysis EU European Union FF Foreign Fighters FTF Foreign Terrorist Fighters ISIS Islamic State of Syria and Iraq MEAE Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Etrangères (Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs) PNR Passenger Name Record RAN Radicalisation Awareness Network UN United Nations USA/US United States of America/United States

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Introduction

With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the ranks of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attracted some 30,000 foreigners, among whom 5,000 were European Union (EU)i citizens.1 France was the country that was the most concerned by this phenomenon, with over 1,000 cases of departure. On the other hand, from 2014 to 2016, the perpetrators of three lethal terrorist attacks in France and Belgium were returning FF who had received training in Iraq and Syria before coming back to Europe. As a consequence, the potential threat represented by these individuals if they were to return to EU soil was taken very seriously by member states and public opinions. This issue became more pressing from 2016 when ISIS started losing its strongholds due to the military intervention of the international coalition. The majority of EU citizens who had joined the organization were either killed or captured by local forces, which prompted a lot of debates. What should be done with these people? Were they dangerous? How could the potential threat they represented be mitigated? While most EU member states considered repatriating their citizens, France openly showed its preference for letting local authorities, such as the Kurdish forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces and Iraqi authorities try French prisoners. This approach seemed to be approved by the public opinion, as two surveys conducted in 2018 (Ifop 2018) and 2019 (Odoxa 2019) revealed that over 80% of French people agreed that French ISIS departees should be tried where they committed their crimes – namely Syria and Iraq. The 2019 survey revealed that 89% of French people were worried at the idea that some of these individuals could return to France and 67% were in favor of not repatriating children either. On the other hand, legal and human rights experts voiced their concerns about the fact that these French citizens might not be offered a fair trial, nor be detained in decent conditions and that some of them might be sentenced to death. In addition, some departees’ families pleaded for the repatriation of their relatives, especially young children who were born in Syria and detained in camps (Villa 2020b). From 2019, the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and Turkey’s offensive against the Kurds in the North-East of Syria made the issue of ISIS returnees even more pressing. With growing instability in the region, it indeed became increasingly hard for France to rely on local

1 Since this study will look at events happening before 2021 and before Brexit, it will include the United Kingdom (UK) when referring to EU member states. 7 authorities to try and detain its citizens. But the French government seems to have kept the same approach, which favors non-repatriation. For instance, in February 2019, former government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux (2018) affirmed that France’s position had remained unchanged – meaning that these individuals ought to be tried where they committed their crimes. In parallel, France was working on a repatriation scheme for some French ISIS members detained in Syria (Vincent et al. 2019). In spite of this, non-repatriation seems to have prevailed in most of the public discourses produced by the French government, relying on the security argument and notwithstanding human rights concerns. It indeed appears that French authorities have been using security and counter-terrorism agendas to justify their decision to not repatriate French ISIS departees. This prompts the following research question:

How and why have the discourses of the Macron administration participated in the securitization of French ISIS returnees between 2017 and 2020?

While research on the political, legal and military responses to ISIS returnees has been extensive, discourse analysis has not been privileged to grasp this issue. More generally, Silvia D’Amato (2019, 4) points out that, when it comes to France specifically, “we still know very little about how one of the most targeted European countries understood, discussed and approached its terrorist challenge in post-9/11 politics.” Exploring this under-researched area of French counter-terrorism studies therefore seems particularly relevant. The purpose of this study is therefore to humbly contribute to bridging some of this existing gap in knowledge but also to gain insights into Western states’ discursive practices in a post-9/11 era. By drawing on Critical Security Studies and more precisely on the securitization theory revisited by the Post-Copenhagen School, the question of French ISIS returnees will thus be analyzed from a social and political science perspective. Rather than assessing policies and threat levels, a constructivist approach will be adopted in order to understand how this issue has been designed as a security threat in governmental discourses to justify the implementation of emergency measures. On top of assessing the consistency between the discourses and the policies implemented, the impact of national and international factors have had on these discourses will also be investigated. Finally, this research will try to find out whether the securitization of ISIS returnees may have led to the stigmatization of minorities such as refugees and Muslims and to further polarization of the French society. Therefore, the aforementioned research question will be broken down into the following sub- questions:

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- Q1. How have official governmental statements contributed to the securitization of French ISIS returnees? - Q2. To what extent are the discourses consistent with other securitizing acts, such as policy measures? - Q3. Which factors on a national, European and global level could explain a change or a continuity in the discourses? - Q4. To what degree are the discourses linked to other public debates on topics such as immigration or Islam?

To answer these questions, this study will start by exploring the existing literature on the ISIS returnees phenomenon (chapter 1). It will highlight the semantic dispute this phenomenon triggers in academia, the threats and challenges these individuals pose to the security of their homelands and the pathways returnees usually follow after their involvement in a terrorist group. The various responses that have been implemented by the EU and its member states to tackle the challenges posed by these individuals will then be investigated (chapter 2). This will allow for distinguishing four types of responses - SUPPRESSION & NON-REPATRIATION,

CRIMINALIZATION, DERADICALIZATION & DISENGAGEMENT and REINTEGRATION that will later help coding the data. Afterwards, the theoretical framework as well as the chosen methodology, data collection and analysis method will be outlined (chapter 3). The findings of the discourse analysis (chapters 4 & 5) will be discussed (chapter 6) before drawing conclusions, showing the limitations of this research and suggesting ideas for further research.

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Chapter 1 : Understanding the ISIS Returnees Phenomenon in the EU

This chapter will explore the existing literature on ISIS returnees. It will explore the debates in academia on the terminology that should be used to talk about these individuals. It will then outline the state of the art regarding the threats and challenges posed by these individuals to European societies. Finally, it will introduce the notion of returning pathways, a key-concept when trying to understand this phenomenon.

1.1) Semantic discussion: ‘Foreign (Terrorist) Fighters’, ‘Jihadists’ and ‘Returnees’ In order to understand the returnees phenomenon, it is important to establish a nomenclature of the various denominations used to refer to individuals who leave their home countries to join a foreign battleground. This section will explore the academic debates surrounding the terms ‘foreign fighters’, ‘foreign terrorist fighters’ and ‘jihadists’. It will also explain why the term ‘returnees’ will be chosen for this research. While the involvement of individuals in conflicts outside their homeland has historically been a worldwide reality observed in many conflicts to this day, this study will focus on France and will thus look at this phenomenon from an EU and French perspective. Professor David Malet (2018, 208), one of the leading political science researchers on this topic, points out that, despite the absence of a standard definition, academics generally agree that ‘foreign fighters’ (FF) are “private citizens who join non-state armed groups in some country other than the one in which they reside”. This worldwide phenomenon is not recent: FF have been involved in approximately 100 civil wars over the past 200 years. (ibid.) However, it is hard to fully grasp the extent of FF involvement in the conflicts in which they take part. For instance, while the Spanish civil war represents one of the best documented cases of FF engagement, estimates vary from 30,000 to over 50,000 individuals (Bakker and de Roy van Zuijdewijn 2015, 2; Malet 2018, 208). Indeed, armed groups do not necessarily keep accurate records of FF who join their ranks. Push and pull factors are also difficult to identify and it is hard to establish a specific FF profile, which makes data collection arduous for researchers on this topic (van Ginkel et al. 2016, 4). It is worth noting that Malet’s definition is flawed: some individuals do join state armed groups – for instance, during the Spanish civil war, some joined

10 the ranks of Franco. In the case of the so-called Islamic State, a self-proclaimed state, this non- state component seems all the more unclear. Since 9/11, there has been an increased correlation between the FF phenomenon and terrorism in the EU. Firstly, the Union abides by the 2014 United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution no. 2178 (2014) that embedded terrorism within the FF phenomenon by using for the first time the denomination ‘foreign terrorist fighters’ (FTF). This semantic choice was a reaction to the growing number of people joining terrorist organizations, in particular Al- Qaeda and ISIS since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 (Malet 2018, 211). The resolution defines FTF as “individuals who travel to a State other than their States of residence or nationality for the purpose of the perpetration, planning, or preparation of, or participation in, terrorist acts or the providing or receiving of terrorist training, including in connection with armed conflict” (UN Security Council 2014, 2). Language science expert Francesca Bisiani (2018) observes that, from 2015, this denomination was largely adopted by the European Commission to refer to European citizens who had joined ISIS. She also warns that this term is ambiguous and may foster an institutional discourse that relies on a vague wording that may be adapted to any context (ibid., 16). Other scholars share this view on the word FTF, like professor in human rights and humanitarian law Helen Duffy (2018, 134), who argues that this term is too vague and contentious. This denomination is indeed ambiguous. First of all, research on departees who left European Countries to join terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq has shown that not all of them were actively engaged on battlegrounds, which makes the term “fighters” inaccurate to describe some of them (Bisiani 2018, 16; Duffy 2018, 135-6; Scherrer et al. 2018). In the case of ISIS, age and gender have been highlighted as two crucial factors depending on which individuals may not be classified as FTF. For instance, security and counterterrorism scholars Edwin Bakker and Seran de Leede (2015) argue that women played a crucial role in Syria, without having necessarily picked up arms. Children who were brought to Syria or Iraq by their parents as well as those who were born there can also hardly be described as FTF, as “under international law all children recruited into armed or terrorist groups are, in the first instance, the victims of crimes committed by adults” (Scherrer et al. 2018, 37). Finally, the word ‘terrorist’ is also problematic: counter-terrorism research fellows Bibi van Ginkel et al. remind their readership that “[n]ot all FF are terrorists, and not all terrorists are FF” (van Ginkel et al. 2016, 57). However, in the EU and more generally in the West, the difference between FF and FTF is gradually disappearing (Malet 2018, 211).

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Another denomination that should be addressed since this study will focus on France, is the term ‘jihadist’. It is the word the most used in the media and in public debates to refer to French citizens who joined ISIS in the early 2010s, although it is also controversial. ‘Jihadist’ refers to someone who is performing the jihad, a highly debated term coined in Islam’s holy book, the Qu’ran. It can be interpreted as an “internal struggle or “great jihad” (al-jihad al- akbar) to improve oneself spiritually”, but also as “just war, that is, armed struggle or “lesser jihad”, also known as “jihad by sword” (al-jihad al-asghar) to fight against the external enemies of Islam” (Souleimanov 2018, 22). These two aspects are also reflected in the Cambridge Dictionary’s double definition of the word: on the one hand, “a religious struggle against evil in yourself or in society” and on the other hand “a holy war fought by Muslims against people who are a threat to Islam” (Cambridge Dictionary). The word ‘jihadist’ can thus have several meanings and implications. Its use may risk the stigmatization of Muslims by correlating terrorism and Islam.

As we have seen in this section, the words FF, FTF ‘jihadist’ are controversial and problematic denominations. The aim of this discussion was twofold. First, this research will pay attention to the denomination used in the official communications of the French government on returning ISIS members. It will be argued that this choice has an impact on how these discourses are perceived by audiences and may help justify certain policies and measures to tackle this issue. In parallel, this choice can also pave the way for ethical loopholes or the stigmatization of certain communities within the French society. Finally, since these three terms all have shortcomings and can be ethically questionable, in this study, French citizens who joined the ranks of ISIS in the 2010s as well as their children will be referred to as ‘departees’ and ‘returnees’.

1.2) ISIS Returnees in the EU: Threats & Challenges The issue of ISIS returnees in the EU has been prompting several security concerns, especially since the early 2010s. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) notes that, among the 5000 EU departees who travelled to a conflict zone in Iraq and Syria, 1000 had died and 1500 had come back to their home countries by 2017 (Europol 2018, 26). The level and nature of the threat and challenges returnees represent is highly debated. The difficulty to gather data on ISIS returnees and the recent nature of this phenomenon make it hard for scholars to assess the threat they pose to EU countries. However, the state of the art still provides insights into the nature and scope of this threat. One of the main dangers

12 that come to mind in Western Europe when dealing with the issue of ISIS returnees is that of potential terrorist attacks carried out or facilitated by those individuals, a phenomenon often referred to as the ‘blowback effect’ or the ‘veteran effect’(Hegghammer 2013; Hegghammer and Nesser 2015). As a matter of fact, some ISIS returnees have been involved in deadly attacks targeting their home countries, such as the November 2015 Paris attacks and the 2016 Brussels attacks (Cragin 2017). Besides, since its emergence, ISIS has been consistently calling its sympathizers to plot and commit attacks in the West (Hegghammer and Nesser 2015, 14). Against this backdrop, in its 2020 report, Europol (2020, 45) argued that returnees “pose a long- term challenge for security services”. However, it is also important to note that this threat is not limited to this particular group of returnees – for instance, senior lecturer in law John Ip notes the involvement of former FF in a plot brewed in the US in 1605 (Ip 2020). While the existence of this phenomenon is usually widely acknowledged by scholars, its extent is debated. In a quantitative analysis of the ‘veteran effect’, Thomas Hegghammer (2013) finds that around one in nine returnees gets involved in a terrorist plot upon their return. Professors specialized in counter-terrorism Edwin Bakker and Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn (2015, 17) concur and describe terrorist attacks orchestrated by returnees as a “low-probability, high-impact threat”. While Hegghammer’s quantitative study argues that veterans are more lethal operatives in a terrorist plot, critical war studies scholar Raphaël Leduc (2016) contradicts this statement and finds that they do not increase the likelihood for a terrorist plot to be executed, nor the number of casualties. It should be noted that these studies were conducted before the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels attacks that both involved ISIS returnees, which might have impacted their findings. Despite these events, Malet and Hayes (2018, 16) stated in a study quantifying the lag-time between returnees’ homecomings and their involvement in domestic terrorist attacks, that they “do not appear to pose an indefinite threat.” In a more recent contribution, security scholar Kire Babanoski (2020) reasserts that returnees do not seem to pose a threat as important as Europe had thought they would in the late 2010s. Him and Lister (2015) also point out that returnees might also disengage from violent activities and become active members of radicalization prevention networks or assets for intelligence services. On the other hand, after an analysis of the Paris 2015 November attacks and the Brussels 2016 attacks’ terrorist cells, senior research fellow for counterterrorism R. Kim Cragin (2017, 218) concludes that ISIS returnees were instrumental in carrying out those two attacks. Out of the nine operatives of the November 2015 attacks, seven were FF who had come home with the purpose of perpetrating these attacks. She also argues that returnees acted as “the connective

13 tissue” between the Paris and Brussels cells and concludes that they represent a threat that quantitative studies fail to account for (ibid., 226). The 2014 Europol report on terrorism concurs and stresses that they may play a role in “logistical, financial or recruitment cells, and may act as role models to individuals within extremist communities” (Europol 2014, 9). Scottish police officer Martin Gallagher (2016, 65) adds that, enhanced by skills acquired during their stay in Syria or Iraq, European returnees might also engage with organized crime upon returning to their homeland. Beyond potential physical threats, van Ginkel and al. (2016, 8) point out that returnees also pose a risk to the social balance of EU societies. First of all, their homecoming might trigger tensions between different communities and lead to the stigmatization of some groups, especially Muslims. Bakker and de Roy van Zuijdewijn (2015, 12) observe that some politicians and some departees themselves openly established a link between getting involved with ISIS’s violent ideology and Islam. In reaction, far-right political parties and groups Europe-wide and have organized rallies that often equated radicalized individuals with Muslims (ibid., 15). Besides, the returnees phenomenon has also been intertwined with the topic of migrations. For instance, two of the November 2015 Paris attacks operatives were proved to have used a refugee routes (Cragin 2017, 218), which could lead to the stigmatization of most migrants. As a matter of fact, international relations and European studies scholar Christopher Baker-Beall (2019, 450) finds that the EU has established a link between ISIS returnees and migrations in its institutional discourses. He argues that, although implicit, this association of ideas constructs migrants “as a potential source of terrorist threat” and makes them “a primary target of preemptive surveillance for counter-terrorism purposes.” Van Ginkel and al. (2016, 15) also note that the two topics have become “increasingly linked in public perceptions and becoming a source of polarisation in society.” Thus, returnees do not only pose a threat to the physical security of EU members states and their citizens, but also to the social and political stability of their societies, which is also encompassed in the “low-probability-high impact” assessment of the phenomenon by Bakker & Roy van Zuijdewijn (2015). But the topic of ISIS returnees in the EU is also surrounded by a wide array of human rights and ethical challenges. One of the dilemmas member states have had to face since ISIS’ rollback is the question of repatriation of their departees who have been detained in the conflict zone. Former US president Donald Trump (2019) himself asked the members of the coalition to repatriate their citizens in February 2019. If this injunction was probably motivated by military and strategic concerns regarding the region’s stability, international law expert Francesca Capone (2019) argues that Trump was not wrong when urging EU countries to take

14 their citizens back. According to international law, states are entitled to prosecute individuals for crimes they committed on their territory. However, EU member states still have to comply with the Union’s values, such as human rights and the rule of law. Yet, there are reasons to believe that the fundamental rights of ISIS departees might be infringed upon: the detention conditions of ISIS members have been proven to be inhumane (Villa 2020a), some countries like Iraq still apply the death penalty and might not grant these individuals a fair trial (Capone 2019). Finally, some local authorities, like the Kurds, do not possess legal instances recognized by the EU (RTL 2020). Another pressing human rights concern is the problem of their children. More than 500 of them were located in Iraq and Syria in 2017 – there are reasons to believe that this number was an underestimation because quantifying children born after 2012 in these conflict zones is a very hard task for researchers and intelligence services (Scherrer et al. 2018, 34-5). For Scherrer and al., the fate of these children is “more relevant to humanitarian concerns than counter-terrorism” (ibid., 59). These children, who are living in conflict areas and often detained in camps, have also been witnessing a lot of violence and experiencing important traumas (Complément d’Enquête 2019). This is why states “should endeavor to ensure that children exposed to extreme vulnerability (…) receive the protection they need” (Duffy 2018, 168). Beyond the question of children, Duffy also points out that women require extra protection, as many have probably “been subject to egregious human rights abuses, including sexual violence, trafficking and forced marriage” (ibid., 164). Upon repatriation, all ISIS returnees also face psychological aftereffects that need to be addressed, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Though this phenomenon has not been observed among all returning FF and FTF groups, Malet (2018, 213) observes that European ISIS returnees have suffered from harsh symptoms. These traumas should be addressed and dealt with upon the returnees’ homecoming, to prevent them from becoming “particularly vulnerable and possibly more likely to engage in dangerous activities at home” (ibid.). Human rights and ethical concerns regarding EU ISIS returnees have thus been voiced by many scholars. All in one, these individuals pose a certain amount of threats and challenges to their home countries. This study will investigate whether these threats are incorporated into the discourses of the Macron administration’s on French ISIS returnees in order to motivate political decisions, security practices and counterterrorism policies. It will also try to understand if they are used to link the issue of ISIS returnees to other public debates, such as migrations or Islam.

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1.3) Returning Pathways While this study will be dealing with EU returnees, it is important to bear in mind that coming home is not the only option for those who joined ISIS. With the organization’s rollback since 2016, there have been several outcomes for EU citizens located in Syria and Iraq. Each possible pathway implies various levels of threats and challenges. To operationalize returning pathways, this study will base itself on the model of de Roy van Zuijdewijn & Bakker (2014) in a study about FF involvement in previous conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Somalia. and its more recent version with ICCT research fellow Alastair Reed (Reed, de Roy van Zuijdewijn and Bakker 2015). For this study, some pathways that were not mentioned in these briefs but evocated in academic literature following the development of the situation in Syria and Iraq will be added to obtain a more comprehensive framework (see Figure 1 below). The first possibility is for the departees to perish (P1). The second option is for them to stay where they are located (P2), where they might integrate peacefully with local populations (2.1) or engage in terrorist activities (P2.2). In the case of ISIS departees, a fourth pathway will be added for those who remain in Iraq and Syria, which is imprisonment or detention by local forces (P2.3). If they leave the conflict area (P3), they can return to their home country (P3.1), where they may either peacefully reintegrate (P3.1.1), engage in terrorist activities (P3.1.2), in other criminal activities (P3.1.3) or be imprisoned or monitored (P3.1.4). Another option is for departees to leave the conflict area and go to a third country (P3.2), where they may integrate peacefully with local populations (P3.2.1), engage in terrorist activities (P3.2.2) or in other criminal activities (P3.2.3). In a third country, ISIS departees could also be imprisoned or detained (P3.2.4) or take part in another conflict (P3.2.5). The notion of pathways is helpful to grasp the threat EU ISIS returnees might pose for their home countries. It also highlights the fact that this threat is not only EU-centred and that there are other possibilities for these individuals than violence. It also seems relevant to stress here that there may be a porosity between various pathways: an individual can go back to their home country (P3.1), be incarcerated (P3.1.4) and reintegrate peacefully (P3.1.1) or turn to petty crime (P3.1.3) afterwards. Moreover, there is a reflexive loop between the policies that are implemented by states and their departees’ pathways. This is why Reed, de Roy van Zuijdewijn and Bakker (2015, 2) stress that policy-makers should be aware of the potential consequences of the measures they implement in order to “to determine the best policy option(s)”.

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Figure 1: Mapping of EU ISIS departees’ returning pathway

(P1) Die

Integrate peacefully (P2.1)

Engage in terrorist activities (P2.2)

Imprisoned or detained Stay(P2) (P2.3)

Integrate peacefully (P3.1.1)

Engage in terrorist activities (P3.1.2)

Return home (P3.1) Engage in other criminal activities (P3.1.3)

Imprisoned or monitored (P3.1.4)

Integrate peacefully (P3.2.1)

Engage in terrorist

(P3) Leave activities (P3.2.2)

Go to a third country Engage in other criminal (P3.2) activities (P3.2.3)

Imprisoned or detained (P3.2.4)

Engage in another conflict (P3.2.5)

This study will analyse which pathways have been incorporated in the discourses of the French administration on French ISIS returnees between 2017 and 2020. It will argue that pathways can be used to help construct these individuals as a potential threat to national security and justify the choice of some policies over others. But before doing so, some attention must be given to these very measures. Which policies have been implemented on the EU level, in some member states and in France to tackle the issue of ISIS returnees?

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Chapter 2: The EU’s and France’s Response to the ISIS Returnees Phenomenon

This chapter aims at understanding the legal framework that has been implemented in the EU and more particularly by North-Western member states which have seen the largest number of their citizens join ISIS. It will conclude that four strategies have been implemented:

SUPPRESSION & NON-REPATRIATION, CRIMINALIZATION, DERADICALIZATION & DISENGAGEMENT and REINTEGRATION. France’s response to the phenomenon will be given particular attention, since it is the country on which this study focuses.

2.1) The EU’s Attempt to Build a Common Framework Terrorism and counter-terrorism has officially been on the Union’s agenda since the European Union Counter-Terrorism Strategy was adopted by the Council of the EU (2005). More specifically, returning FF have been added on Europol and the DG Home Affairs’ counter- terrorism agendas. Strategies such as Prevent, Protect, Pursue, Respond (PPPR) or the implementation of the Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN) have also been addressing the issue of FF and FTF and their potential return since the early 2010s (van Ginkel et al. 2016, 11). In October 2015, the Council of Europe issued an Additional Protocol to its Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism that would allow to tackle the issue of ISIS returnees to the EU. The countries who ratified this protocol agreed to make these actions criminal offenses in their domestic legal frameworks (Council of Europe 2015).

Article 2: Participating in an association or group for the purpose of terrorism Article 3: Receiving training for terrorism Article 4: Travelling abroad for the purpose of terrorism Article 5: Funding travelling abroad for the purpose of terrorism Article 6: Organizing or otherwise facilitating travelling abroad for the purpose of terrorism

In 2016, in the aftermath of the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels attacks, the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator specifically stressed the need for establishing a common framework regarding ISIS returnees (EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator 2016). A few months after this statement, the Coordinator also highlighted the importance of dealing with children located in Syria and Iraq and returning to the EU (EU

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Counter-Terrorism Coordinator 2017). His first declaration was enshrined in EU law through Directive 2017/541, which was adopted by the European Parliament in 2017. It required member states to criminalize terrorism-related travel and incentivized them to exchange knowledge and good-practices related to FF and returnees. The EU also created tools such as the Passenger Name Record (PNR) that allowed aircraft companies to transfer passengers’ data to states to help them identify suspicious travel patterns and identify terrorists and their associates (European Parliament 2016). This instrument was combined with two regulations reinforcing the Schengen Information System (SIS) by extending it to the fields of border controls as well as police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, which both mentioned FTF as a reason to reinforce information exchanges between member states (European Parliament 2018a). Furthermore, the ISIS departees phenomenon was used to strengthen border controls, through Regulation (EU) 2017/458, which argued that EU departees created “a need to reinforce checks at external borders” (European Parliament 2018b). Baker-Beall thus argues that “the idea of requiring member-states to enact laws that restrict travel and strengthen EU border” in relation to the returnees phenomenon has been accepted within the Union (Baker- Beall 2019, 442). However, despite these various attempts at establishing an EU framework, tackling the issue of ISIS returnees falls mainly under the competencies of member states.

2.2) Northwestern Member States’ Response to the ISIS Returnees Phenomenon Regardless of the efforts to have a coherent legal framework, member states have implemented different policies (Scherrer et al. 2018, 43). For instance, there is no EU-wide consensus on “which acts are constitutive of travelling for 'terrorist purposes,' and how the language of facilitation and support of terrorism are interpreted in court” (ibid.). In addition, EU States have implemented various measures to tackle the issue of ISIS returnees which can be divided in four categories: (1) SUPPRESSION & NON-REPATRIATION, (2) CRIMINALIZATION, (3)

DERADICALIZATION & DISENGAGEMENT and (4) REINTEGRATION. It is important to note here that these approaches are the ones that have been implemented in the EU countries which count a significant number of departees and which consequently had to come up with new policies and legal frameworks – namely, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. This part of the study will thus focus on the responses provided by North-Western EU countries.

The first approach, SUPPRESSION & NON-REPATRIATION, consists in states not letting their departees return – either by targeting them directly on battlefields, by stripping them from

19 their citizenships or by not arranging their homecoming. Such an approach has been put forward by the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who argued that the best solution to tackle the issue of returnees was to make sure none of them traveled back home (Malet and Hayes 2018, 9). Targeting these departees on battleground, while appearing like a direct and efficient solution in the short-term, might create collateral damages for local populations (Reed, de Roy van de Zuijdewijn and Bakker 2015, 15). Depriving citizens of their nationality has also been harshly criticized and described as a process through which “states dilute the significance of the sanctity of citizenship and also violate human rights by profiling residents” (Laine 2017, 32). In some states, like Germany, this measure is illegal (Scherrer and al. 2018, 41). The recent debates over former UK citizen Shamima Begum who was stripped of her British nationality and left stateless shed even more light on this controversial measure (BBC 2021).

NON-REPATRIATION, on the other hand, leads to the legal and human rights dilemma that have been evoked in Chapter 1.3, but also to other issues. Leaving ISIS members in unstable regions like Syria might allow them to travel to other battlegrounds if they remain committed to their radical ideology. This phenomenon could already be observed from 2016 with ISIS departees moving to other conflict areas such as Lybia (de Roy van Zuijdewijn 2016). Leduc (2016, 99) also points out that “policies that make it harder to return contribute to keeping foreign fighters from demobilizing.” Legal experts Tanya Mehra and Christophe Paulussen (2019) share this view and argue that states should repatriate their citizens based on legal and ethical duties as well as on security concerns for the stability of all countries involved. But what responses can states implement if they do take their citizens back?

The most widely applied strategy for departees who do come home is CRIMINALIZATION – namely the penalization of individuals. This approach was implemented by all states through a wide array of measures, such as imprisonment, pre-charge and pre-trial detention, restriction of movement and monitoring (Scherrer et al. 2018, 41-3). This response has also met criticism from scholars, especially when the favoured solution is imprisonment. Malet and Hayes (2018) find that while jailing dangerous terrorists is necessary, prisons often fail to tackle extremism in the long-term. There are also reasons to believe that CRIMINALIZATION has fuelled a feeling of fear among European citizens and furthered the stigmatization of some communities – Muslims, in particular (de Roy van Zuijdewijn 2016, 92; Duffy 2018, 162). Another important challenge posed by procedures such as monitoring is their feasibility: European governments do not have the capacity to thoroughly monitor all returnees (Bakker, Paulussen, Entenmann 2014, 18). Imprisoning individuals also poses a number of questions: what if they radicalize further or contribute to radicalizing other inmates? What happens once they have served their

20 time? How to help returnees turn away from violent extremism? Ultimately, an approach purely based on CRIMINALIZATION seems to be a short-term solution that fails to address the longstanding issues posed by ISIS returnees. This is why EU member states have combined this penal framework with

DERADICALIZATION & DISENGAGEMENT strategies (ibid.). A distinction must be made between the two terms: while DERADICALIZATION means withdrawing from violent activities and the ideology linked to them, DISENGAGEMENT is simply the act of withdrawing from violence and terrorist activities without necessarily giving up on an ideology. Psychology researcher specialized in terrorism and political violence John Horgan (2008) notes that “there is no evidence to suggest that disengagement from terrorism may result in deradicalization.” Most countries who have seen a large number of their citizens join ISIS have implemented a wide range of DERADICALIZATION and/or DISENGAGEMENT programs, like Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, which have been supported in large part by the EU through RAN. As mentioned before, in most of these countries, DERADICALIZATION and

DISENGAGEMENT are often complementing CRIMINALIZATION measures and implemented in a carceral context (Scherrer et al. 2018, 39). However, some member states have been more keen on favouring one of these approaches as an alternative to penalization, like Denmark and Germany (de Rivoire et al. 2018, 41). Depending on the goal of these programs, psychological and psychiatric support is provided to returnees and sometimes complemented by religious expertise, like it is the case in the Netherlands (Scherrer et al. 2018, 97). Yet, the efficiency of these strategies has been questioned, especially because the lack of data and hindsight does not allow to fully grasp the success-rate of such programs. In addition, scholars like Horgan (2008, 7) suggest that

DISENGAGEMENT, While promising on an individual level, might not enable radicalized individuals to reintegrate the societies they lived in. Indeed, in the long term, allowing returnees to be part of the societies they once belonged to might be one of the most crucial issues pertaining to their repatriation. Denmark, in particular, has been the forerunner of an approach that goes even further:

REINTEGRATION. The so-called “Aarhus Model” implemented by the Danish authorities has been aiming at not only helping individuals to leave extremist environments but also to become again members of the Danish society through social and psychological support schemes (Hassan 2018). This model has gathered a lot of attention worldwide and seems to have had encouraging outcomes over the past few years, as security scholar Fabien Merz (2017, 3) finds that none of the returnees that followed this program in 2014 had engaged in terrorist acts by

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2017. However, this strategy is also controversial and Denmark has been criticized for implementing a soft approach (Hassan 2018, 3). Furthermore, despite encouraging results, few data is available regarding the success of REINTEGRATION schemes (ibid.). Counterterrorism expert Charles Lister (2015, 10), who vouches for this strategy, also warns that relying too much on it “comes with the risk that such a system could be “played”, allowing FFs with violent intent to slip through the net.” Finally, reintegration programs have been implemented throughout Europe but have seldom been at the centre of the strategies for handling the issue of ISIS returnees. For Babanoski (2020, 24), “[t]he value and importance of developing and prioritizing de- radicalization and exit programs deserves further consideration and exploration” from policy makers. Leduc (2016) and Malet (2018) agree and even argue that returnees might become a resource for intelligence services and programs preventing radicalization. Therefore, reintegration models seem to be an appropriate response for dealing with ISIS returnees, but relying too heavily on such strategies can also lead to criticism and discontent among public opinion and run the risk of letting some ill-intended returnees target their home countries. This study will try and understand which strategy is the most present in the French administration’s discourses on ISIS returnees. Finding which approach was favoured will help grasp how returnees are constructed: are they alienated from their French nationality, presented as potential threats to domestic security and is the possibility of their reintegration within the French society evoked?

2.3) France’s Response to the ISIS Returnees Phenomenon France is the EU member state that has seen the most of its citizens leave for Syria and Iraq, with an estimated number of over 1000 departures since 2011 (Lister 2015, 2). It also experienced the November 2015 Paris attacks, which were orchestrated by ISIS returnees and killed 130. These events forced France to address the issue of French citizens who joined ISIS and the possibility of them returning. With a return rate estimated at 12% in 2018, France is below the EU average (22-24%) (Scherrer et al. 2018, 31). France also has had a particularly high number of women and children among its citizens located in Syria and Iraq: 17% of French departees and around one out of four returnees are women (ibid., 33), while over 400 children with claims to French citizenship were identified in Syria and Iraq in 2017 (ibid., 35).

France’s approach to its returnees has mainly been relying on NON-REPATRIATION and

CRIMINALIZATION. Firstly, the country has stood out among EU member states by showing its

22 preference for NON-REPATRIATION, provided that ISIS departees would be granted a fair trial

(ibid., 53). NON-REPATRIATION has therefore been a key component of France’s response to the ISIS returnees phenomenon and is still a largely applied method to tackle this issue to this day. In the aftermath of the November 2015 Paris attacks, Prime Minister Manuel Valls also tried to push for a law that would facilitate stripping individuals with dual-citizenship from their French nationality if they had been involved in terrorist activities, but had to withdraw this proposal due to a strong backlash (ibid., 83). Few repatriation schemes have thus been implemented by France to bring its ISIS departees back. One of the rare occurrences of such a scheme is a repatriation protocol which allows Turkey to send back French citizens captured in Syria and Iraq to France. This agreement was established under the presidency of François Hollande, in

2014, and is also known as the “Cazeneuve Protocol” (Rubetti 2019). Despite NON-

REPATRIATION being favored, some French ISIS departees may come back to their home country through governmental protocols, while others came back through other routes. For those who do return, in France, repression prevails (Merz 2017, 2). Indeed, most legal tools the country equipped itself with have been incorporated to the penal procedure code (CPP) and the code of interior security (CSI) since 2012 (Safi 2017):

Article 113-13 (CPP): the French law applies for terrorist acts that have been committed abroad by French nationals or individuals usually residing in France. Article 726-2 (CPP): terrorists offenders should be detained in a dedicated unit when their behavior threatens the order of the carceral facility Article L.225-1 (CSI): monitoring of returns of French citizens for whom there are reasons to believe that their travel abroad has been linked to a terrorist network and that they might pose a threat to national security, which implies: Article L.225-2 (CSI): house arrests or restriction of movement to a specific geographical area Article L.225-3 (CSI): ban of direct or indirect interaction with some individuals Article L. 225-6 (CSI): if the convict agrees to enter a reintegration program, these measures can be lifted

French law Professor Farah Safi (2017) points out that this legal framework is heavily relying on the penalization of returnees. She also argues that a lot of these articles are imprecise and can be interpreted in various manners, which might lead to abuses. Political science research fellow at the European University Institute Silvia D’Amato (2019, 8) confirms that, more generally, France has adopted a “criminalizing approach to terrorism”. The response to

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ISIS returnees is thus embedded in the country’s counterterrorism framework, which explains why their homecoming is largely dealt with through CRIMINALIZATION. Together with these penal measures, France has also been implementing

DERADICALIZATION & DISENGAGEMENT and REINTEGRATION programs. Most of these measures have been applied in prison or to complement criminalizing procedures. Merz noted in 2017 (2) that they had been implemented relatively late and that practitioners lacked preparation as well as adapted facilities, which hindered the outcome of these programs. After these unconvincing attempts, France launched a new deradicalization action plan through the Comité Interministériel de Prévention de la Délinquance et de la Radicalisation (Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalisation), which only addressed the issue of ISIS returnees explicitly when mentioning children coming back from conflict zones (French Government 2018, 18, 21). On the other hand, this plan included other measures which could apply to ISIS returnees, including the opening of specialized units in prison such as Quartiers d’Evaluation de la Radicalisation (Radicalization Evaluation Units), Quartiers de Prise en charge de la Radicalisation (Radicalization Monitoring Units) or Quartiers d’Isolement (Isolation Units). On top of monitoring the radicalization of individuals, these measures also have a containment utility as some units allow for separating radicalized individuals from other inmates, thus preventing proselytizing. Nonetheless, most of these initiatives are actually implemented within a larger CRIMINALIZATION framework. Merz (2017,

2) also points out that the rare DERADICALIZATION programs taking place outside of jail were put in action quickly and have a lot of weaknesses. If the laws and policies implemented by France to tackle the challenges posed by ISIS returnees have been analysed by several scholars, little is known about the French government’s discursive practices regarding this phenomenon (D’Amato 2019, 4). This section demonstrated that policies have been relying on NON-REPATRIATION and CRIMINALIZATION, but what was favoured in the government’s discourses between 2017 and 2020? Were other approaches, such as DERADICALIZATION/DISENGAGEMENT or REINTEGRATION also evocated? And was there a discrepancy between the policies that have been implemented and what members of the government have been stressing? This research aims at understanding whether those discourses have evolved but also whether they contribute to the construction of ISIS returnees as a serious threat to national security by being incorporated in a broader political narrative on terrorism and counterterrorism.

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Chapter 3: Research Design

This chapter will present the research design that has been used for analysing the discourses of the Macron administration on French ISIS returnees between 2017 and 2020. It will start by mapping the theory of securitization, before explaining the choice for a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach. Finally, data collection and coding will be outlined.

3.1) Securitization Theory: Beyond the Copenhagen School This research will draw on critical security studies, which vouch for looking at security issues from a social science perspective. More specifically, it will base itself on the securitization theory, which was coined 1997 by the scholars of the Copenhagen School Barry Buzan, Ole Weaver & Jaap de Wilde in their book Security: A New Framework for Analysis. They define securitization as follows: through a discourse (=speech-act) where they resort to linguistic tools (=security grammar), a representative of the state (=securitizing actor) argues that an element (=referent object) is existentially endangered by a threat, which justifies the implementation of exceptional measures to protect it (Buzan, Weaver and de Wilde 1997). However ground- breaking at the time of its publication, the securitization theory has been criticized and has evolved over the last two decades. This study will therefore base itself on its revisited version by post-Copenhagen scholars. First of all Buzan, Weaver & de Wilde have been criticized for focusing most of their attention on the securitizing actors (often a state representative with executive power) and what they call functional actors (people or entities that may impact the decision to securitize an issue without having any decisional power). While the audience’s acceptance of the securitizing move is mentioned to determine the success or failure of securitization, few attention is dedicated to it as a key-actor. More recently, scholars like the international relations and philosophy researcher specialized in security studies Thierry Balzacq (2010) have emphasized its critical role. According to him, for securitization to succeed, the audience must be directly connected to the issue that is being securitized and have the power to enable the securitizing actor to implement extraordinary measures to deal with the threat. International security and policing and security professors Sarah Léonard and Christian Knauert (2010, 74) also point out that the concept of audience is complex: there may be several audiences with different characteristics but that “are all inter-linked as they are part of the same policy-making process.” Thus, the role of the audience goes beyond the mere acceptance of a securitizing move: it has a

25 proactive role within securitization. Furthermore, scholars highlight the importance of power dynamics in security practices. As professor of international relations specialized in critical security studies Mark B. Salter (2010, 117) writes: “[t]he success or failure of securitizing moves depends on who can speak and what can be said.” The legitimacy, or positional power, of all actors thus plays an important role in securitizing an issue. According to the Copenhagen School, securitizing actors perform securitizing acts, among which a speech-act raises an issue “above politics” into the field of security thanks to a security grammar (Buzan, Weaver and de Wilde 1997, 26). In Buzan, Weaver and de Wilde’s theory, this speech-act constitutes a binary moment: the issue goes from “politicized” to “securitized” at once (ibid., 23). This study will argue on the contrary that there is no binary moment after which an issue is securitized, but rather that securitization is an “ongoing political (and sociological) process” through which security threats are constructed (Baker-Beall 2019, 44). This implies that one must look beyond the linguistic elements of the speech-acts: while the text itself can be seen as an important component of securitization, the social context in which it has been produced is also crucial (Stritzel 2007). Balzacq (2010, 36) points out that speech-acts are only one kind of securitizing acts among others, such as policy measures implemented to tackle the threat, means of triggering emotions or mobilizing the audience and communication strategies. It will be considered here that the securitizing speech-acts are one part of the securitization process and cannot be isolated from a broader political narrative nor from the context in which they have been produced. As a matter of fact, post-Copenhagen scholars have been vouching for embedding securitization in the context in which it is produced. For the political scientist Holger Stritzel (2007, 368), “actors always act within a structural context” which produces a framework within which the securitizing act happens. This attention to context has been supported by other scholars, such as professor of international relations C. Wilkinson (2010, 99) who argues that understanding the sociocultural context in which the securitizing acts occur “is vital if we are to uncover local understandings of security and how they are created.” For Balzacq (2010, 36), both proximate context (the immediate context in which securitizing acts are embedded) and distal context (the sociocultural context in which the audience is receiving the securitizing acts) matter and deserve the attention of researchers who investigate securitization processes. Looking at the context of securitizing acts can help understand the motivations that led to the construction of a phenomenon as a vital threat as well as the reason why this securitization might be accepted or rejected by the audience. Based on the post-Copenhagen revisited version of the theory, this research will therefore base itself on Balzacq’s definition of securitization as:

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an articulated assemblage of practices whereby heuristic artefacts (metaphors, policy tools, image repertoires, analogies, stereotypes, emotions, etc.) are contextually mobilized by a securitizing actor, who works to prompt an audience to build a coherent network of implications (feelings, sensations, thoughts, and intuitions), about the critical vulnerability of a referent object, that concurs with the securitizing actor’s reasons for choices and actions, by investing the referent subject with such an aura of unprecedented threatening complexion that a customized policy must be undertaken immediately to block its development. [author’s emphasis] (ibid., 3).

Finally, this study will also investigate whether the more recent concept of indirect securitization as theorized by the political scientist Clara Eroukhmanoff (2018) also applies to France’s response to its returnees. The premise of this concept is that meaning is not always overt and can be deduced from speeches and words: “on many occasions, the speaker may mean what she/he utters, but also mean something more, which is not conveyed in the literal utterance meaning” (ibid., 14). This argument is based on philosopher of language John R. Searle’s example of the dinner table situation (1979, 30). When one sits at a dinner table and asks another person “Can you reach the salt?”, the speaker is in fact asking whether this person can pass them the salt and is actually not interested in knowing whether they can reach the salt or not – and the interlocutor understands this. To illustrate her concept, Eroukhmanoff (2018, 14) refers to post 9/11 discourses on terrorism in the US and concludes that “while the speaker means what she/he says (‘Islam is not a threat’), she/he means something more (‘but the only way to tackle the threat of terrorism is to securitise the Muslim population’)” at the same time, without explicitly saying so. Such strategies can have a beneficial effect for both the audience and the securitizing actor: on the one hand, the “[a]udience is removed from feeling the securitising work” and on the other hand the “[s]ecuritising actor ‘saves face’ and avoids accusations of racism and a loss of credibility and authority” (ibid., 17). Consequently, this study will be looking at whether covert forms of securitization can be observed in the official discourses of the French government on French ISIS returnees. Drawing from Balzacq’s definition and from the work of post-Copenhagen scholars, the securitization process will be mapped-out as follows (Figure 2): the referent object that is perceived and depicted as existentially threatened lies at the centre of three interactive pillars – the context, the securitizing act(s) and the actor(s).

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Figure 2. Mapping of the securitization process

Securitizing Act(s) - Speech-acts (direct or indirect)

- Policy measures - Communication strategies

Referent

object

Actors Context - Securitizing Actor(s) - Proximate context - Functional Actor(s) - Distal context - Audience(s)

In the case of this research, the securitizing actors are members of the French government who justify decisions taken to tackle the issue of French ISIS returnees; the functional actors might be other states, the media, opposition parties, or even the public opinion; and the audience is French citizens, which may be broken down into several audiences based on various factors like class, gender, age, political affinities, etc. The securitizing acts that will be looked at will be official communications by members of the Macron administration. Particular attention will be given to the way they intertwine with policy measures, in order to understand if they fall under the categories of SUPPRESSION & NON-REPATRIATION,

CRIMINALIZATION, DERADICALIZATION & DISENGAGEMENT and/or REINTEGRATION that have been depicted in the previous chapter. What is yet to be investigated is in which context these securitizing acts are implemented as well as the nature of the referent object: what is threatened by French ISIS returnees, according to the French government? The physical security of citizens, French values, or something else? By looking at discourses of the Macron administration, this study will thus attempt to understand the process through which the issue of French ISIS returnees has been securitized between 2017 and 2020.

3.2) Methodology: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) This section will explain which methodology will be used in this study, critical discourse analysis (CDA), and why it has been chosen as the most relevant way to answer to the following research question:

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How and why have the discourses of the Macron administration participated in the securitization of French ISIS returnees between 2017 and 2020?

First of all, discourse analysis happens to be the approach proposed by Buzan, Weaver & de Wilde for applying the securitization theory. One of the main criticism that arises from the way they suggest using this method is that they focus on linguistic features, or what they call a “grammar of security” (Buzan, Weaver and de Wilde 1997, 33). Going against their approach, this research will argue that linguistic elements, while playing an important role, are not sufficient to understand how the discourses of the French government on ISIS returnees have contributed to securitize this issue. It will thus rely on the assumption that “discourse is the primary medium for social action and is performative and action oriented: people both do things and construct things through language” (Jackson and Hall 2016, 35). In that respect, discourse analysts “explore the relationship between discourse and reality” and look at discourse as “an interrelated set of texts” (Philipps and Hardy 2002, 3). As a consequence, this study will look at discourses as an ensemble of written and/or spoken occurrences that contribute to establishing new norms, habits, collective representations and narratives, but which also reflect already established norms, habits, collective representations and narratives. It will be argued here that discourses are thus both political and social and that they embed events in storytelling schemes – in this case the fight against terrorism – that aim at ensuring national cohesion. For this reason, one key and non-textual element that has to be taken into account, based on one of the three pillars of the previous mapping of the securitization theory: context. Balzacq (2010, 39) suggests remedy to the Copenhagen School’s methodological shortcomings by looking at discourses as “a vehicle of meaning, a meaning which is rarely self-evident but has to be charted by the analyst.” This is why this research will resort to a specific branch of discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis (CDA), a methodology that “allows an in-depth and context-sensitive analysis of the political language” (D’Amato 2019, 5). Indeed, with CDA, one may proceed to a three-layers analysis: (i) examination of the actual content, structure and meaning of the text under scrutiny (the text dimension); (ii) examination of the form of discursive interaction used to communicate meaning and beliefs (the discursive practice dimension); and (iii) consideration of the social context in which the discursive event is taking place (the social practice dimension). (Grant et al. 2004, 11) Drawing from the concepts explored in chapters 1 & 2 related to the issue of ISIS returnees in the EU and in France and on the aforementioned three-layers model, this research will look at the linguistic elements – for instance, which word is used when talking about ISIS returnees – and communication strategies – for instance, which political narrative these discourses are

29 embedded in – employed by members of the Macron administration to try and understand how they contributed to the securitization of French ISIS returnees. Because the texts on their own will only offer a limited understanding of the securitization process, the consistency between the discourses and other securitizing acts such as policy measures will be investigated. On the other hand, this study will also try to understand if external factors might have influenced the discourses of the Macron administration on ISIS returnees, both on a national and international level – for instance, the evolution of the Syrian civil war. Finally, it will explore the data to see whether other topics have been linked to this issue in the discourses. Beyond the particular case of France, political communication about terrorism is an under-researched area within this field. Analysing the discourses of the French government on ISIS returnees and their potential consequences can be very useful for drawing conclusions on Western States’ discursive practices in a post-9/11 era. To do so, the following section will depict how data was collected, selected and coded.

3.3) Data Collection & Analysis To conduct this research, data was collected on three official websites from the French government: - viepublique.fr, a website tied to the French Prime Minister’s directorate for legal and administrative information. Its goal is to help citizens understand current debates and affairs and to promote transparency. The extracts were retrieved in the ‘discourses’ section, the website compiles various types of public discourses produced by the French government, from official speeches to debates at the national assembly or interviews in the media.2 - gouvernment.fr, the official website of the Prime Minister’s office. It contains official speeches from the Prime Minister as well as press releases.3 - diplomatie.gouv.fr, the official website of the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE). Since the ISIS returnees phenomenon is an international affair, the website offers a large range of press briefs and releases issued by the as well as some interviews by MEAE officials.4 While viepublique.fr features discourses from various Ministers or governmental

2 https://www.vie-publique.fr/ 3 https://www.gouvernement.fr/ 4 https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/

30 officials, government.fr serves as a platform to promote the strategies chosen by the French Prime Minister, who, as head of the French government, plays a decisive role in policy-making processes and in public communications. diplomatie.gouv.fr was picked because the issue of ISIS returnees in France is handled mainly by the MEAE. All these websites were also selected because they offer a large database of various types of public discourses – which is not the case for instance for the Minister of Justice, which also plays an important role in addressing the French ISIS returnees phenomenon. The dates that were chosen to frame the data collection were May 2017 to February 2020. The starting point was the election of Emmanuel Macron and the appointment of his government. The ending date was chosen because the Covid-19 crisis started gaining most media attention from early 2020 on. Most of the public discourses produced by members of the French government were thus focused on the pandemic which eclipsed most of the other public debates. With the use of the research toolbars on each of these websites, discourses that were produced within this time frame and which contained the words “foreign fighters”, “foreign terrorist fighters”, “French citizens in Syria and Iraq” and “jihadists” were all extracted. 81 pieces of discourses were collected altogether, among which interviews given in the media, official speeches, press briefs and releases as well as political debates. Since the aim of this research was to understand general trends in the discourses between 2017 and 2021, all pieces of discourses selected were analysed. The speakers or authors of the discourses were members of the French government or working for various Ministries (MEAE, Interior, Justice, Armies), the Prime Minister himself or Ministries’ spokespersons or communication offices. As the government was reshuffled in 2020, when the function of the speakers will be mentioned in the analysis, it will refer to their function at the time the discourses were produced. The original data was in French, which means that all the extracts that will be quoted in the next chapters were translated to English by the author in the most objective and neutral way possible. Based on the three-layer CDA analysis method evocated in the previous section, concepts drawn from the literature on returning foreign fighters were operationalized into codes, which were compiled in Table 1 (see below). These codes were applied to the data and allowed to observe recurring patterns as well as differences. The results of this analysis will be outlined in the following chapters.

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Table 1. Coding framework

LEVEL 1 – Text dimension Terminology Which terms are used to talk about returning French ISIS FF: ‘Foreign fighters’; ‘foreign terrorist fighters’; ‘jihadists’; ‘returnees’; other? Which returning pathways are evocated (the most)? Are there any Pathways pathways that are not mentioned? What responses are evoked: SUPPRESSION, NON-REPATRIATION; Responses CRIMINALIZATION; DERADICALIZATION/DISENGAGEMENT; REINTEGRATION; other? Are threats evocated in relation to returning French ISIS FF? If yes, which Threats ones? Security Grammar Do the securitizing actors use a security grammar? If yes, how? LEVEL 2 – Discursive Practice Dimension Securitizing Actors Who are the securitizing actors? What is their function? What is their political position? Type of Text What type of text is under study? Through which media do the discourses occur? What is the target audience? Communication Which communication strategies are implemented? Which rhetorical Strategies elements are employed? What is their potential impact on the audience? LEVEL 3 – Context Do national, European and international actors influence the discourses? Functional Actors If yes, how? Do international and geopolitical events influence the discourses? In International Context which context are the discourses embedded? Are the discourses embedded in a broader political narrative? Do the Political Narratives discourses contribute to construct one or more political narrative(s)? If yes, which one(s)? Related Topics Are other topics evocated in relations to returnees? If yes, which ones?

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Chapter 4: The Securitization of French ISIS Returnees

This chapter will constitute the first part of the data analysis and will aim at understanding the securitization process of ISIS returnees by the French government. First, it will show that the discourses have contributed to constructing ISIS returnees as a vital threat for France and its citizens’ physical and social safety. Second, it will reveal that the securitizing acts that prevailed in the rhetoric of the Macron administration between 2017 and 2020 are NON-REPATRIATION and CRIMINALIZATION.

4.1) Constructing Returnees as a Threat The primary premise of the securitization theory is that securitizing actors who have a positional power identify a phenomenon as a threat that endangers a referent object. The data under study showed that members of the French government (securitizing actors) have emphasized the dangerous nature of ISIS returnees (threat) between 2017 and 2020, by depicting them as a threat to the physical safety of France and its citizens (referent object) and have stressed their legitimacy to securitize (positional power).

4.1.1) Enemies of the State First, the textual analysis of the discourses revealed that ISIS departees were constructed as enemies of France. The most recurrent noun used to designate French ISIS departees and returnees was “fighter” - 60 occurrences in the 81 extracts under analysis. The second denomination that was the most used was JIHADISTS, which occurred 30 times. The terms

FOREIGN FIGHTERS or FOREIGN TERRORIST FIGHTERS were almost never used and the word “terrorist” was more commonly employed. It therefore appears that the French administration did not use the official denomination adopted by the UN and the EU to refer to ISIS departees and returnees. This could imply that securitizing actors sat uncomfortably with these official terms, or that they decided to go for words that have become common in everyday talks about Islamist terrorism in the French media. Moreover, terms such as “terrorists”, “fighters”, or “jihadists” are usually employed in the context of terrorist attacks. As such, they might have indirectly established French ISIS departees as potential terrorists. On the other hand, the adjective “French” was also often employed – 58 occurrences – which means that the fact that these individuals belonged to the French society was often reminded to the audience. The use

33 of this adjective could also be interpreted as a way of stating facts and avoiding confusion, since the returnees phenomenon concerns France and several other EU countries. Furthermore, the lexical field of crime and criminality was omnipresent when securitizing actors referred to French ISIS departees. One of the main communication elements was that these individuals had to take responsibility for their decision to join ISIS, but also that they ought to be “judged for the crimes they committed” (Collomb 2018, l.19). Associating them with crime could be interpreted as a way of depicting ISIS departees as criminals. This complied with French and EU law, as travelling with the purpose of joining a terrorist organization such as ISIS constitutes a criminal offence. But this also emphasized the potential threat they represent for the security of the country. Their animosity against France was also explicitly stressed: “they are French, but they fight against France, so they are our enemies” [researcher’s emphasis] (Le Drian 2019a, l.5-8). In this statement, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves le Drian openly defined French ISIS departees as enemies of France. Similar statements relied on this “us versus them” rhetoric (Le Drian 2018a, l.26-36; Le Drian 2018b, l.10-11); Le Drian 2019b, l.33-4, 111, 117). which emphasized the alleged belligerent intentions of these individuals towards France. These statements might thus also have triggered a sense of betrayal for the audience: French people decided to fight against France and therefore still had ill intentions against their home country. As such one may argue that these illocutions which were delivered on major mass media have contributed to constructing French ISIS returnees as enemies of France. The data thus revealed two elements: (1) the terms that were employed by the French government correlated French ISIS returnees with terrorists and (2) the discourses’ emphasis on their betrayal and active, voluntary participation in a terrorist group also suggested that they represented a danger.

4.1.2) A Life-Threatening Risk for French Citizens In the discourses, returnees were consistently pictured as representing a vital threat to national security. This was done explicitly through the use of the word “threat” itself, which occurred particularly often in 2017, with 16 occurrences. On top of this, the risk that returnees might plot terrorist attacks in France was clearly evocated. In January 2018, Minister of Armies, Florence Parly (2018a, l.75-6), declared: “many of these people detained in those places continue to express their desire to come back and to keep fighting in France.” What is implied here is that several departees voiced their intention to come back to France to perpetrate terrorist attacks. In the same vein, a statement released after a meeting between French and Belgian Prime

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Ministers in 2017 (Service Communication Hôtel de Matignon 2017, l.31-2) argued that “one of the threats that now concerns us the most is the return of these jihadists to France and Belgium” [researcher’s emphasis], thus explicitly pinpointing ISIS returnees as a threat. Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, reasserted this idea in November 2017: And I can assure you that when I say ‘the level of threat remains very high’, it is not simply a stylistic effect, it is not simply something – it is indeed high, everybody – I mean, at least I hope that everybody knows it and that everybody is aware of it. (Philippe 2017, l.64-6) This statement evocated the threat represented by ISIS returnees and homegrown terrorism – when one both radicalizes and commits terrorist offences in one’s home country – and highlighted again the potential danger they constituted to the physical safety of French citizens. On the other hand, in a debate at the senate, Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet (2017d, l.726- 7), affirmed that she was not sure that the terrorist threat came from ISIS returnees. However, as debates at the senate are generally not broadcasted, there are reasons to believe that this statement reached a smaller audience than Edouard Philippe’s above quote which was pronounced on the first French radio morning show. The alleged risk posed by ISIS returnees was also enhanced by the evocation of previous terrorist attacks such as the November 2015 Paris mass shootings. In 2019, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves le Drian declared: I am telling you, without wanting to worry the people who are listening to us, we are not done with those terrorists, with this jihadism, which killed in our country and against which we need to shield ourselves and be very vigilant. [researcher’s emphasis] (Le Drian 2019b, l.41-3) Other occurrences like “the dramatic consequences that we know” (Service Communication Hôtel de Matignon 2017, l.30), “touched a certain number of French people in their own flesh by having been associated with attacks” (Lemoyne 2019a, l.16), or “what we have suffered here in France” (Le Drian 2019i, l.8) directly referred to the November 2015 Paris attacks in which ISIS returnees were involved. Establishing a correlation between ISIS returnees and their potential involvement in large, deadly, but also rarely executed terrorist plots could lead people to believe that they represent a vital threat to the physical safety of French citizens. In addition, such statements might trigger an emotional reaction from the audience, who might be particularly sensitive to this topic, by referring to events that cost the life of over a hundred innocent civilians. Therefore, not only could such statements have provoked fear from French citizens, but it could also have contributed to some resentment towards French ISIS returnees. The notion of pathways was also instrumentalized in the discourses to evoke the potential threats represented by returnees. As we have just seen, returning to one’s home country with the project to commit a terrorist attack (P3.1.2) was explicitly mentioned 11 times by

35 securitizing actors. P3.1.2 is probably the most dreaded trajectory for the target audience of these discourses – French citizens. As this threat concerned them directly and could lead to a dreaded outcome, there might be a tendency for this audience to believe that this threat was bigger than what it actually is. The risk of seeing returnees come back to France was also connoted several times through the terms “dissemination” or “dispersion”, which implied that detained French ISIS departees might escape and come back to France (P3.1). Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet (2020a, l.30), directly addressed this possibility: “these people should not be disseminated (…) and come back to France through the back door.” While not stated explicitly, the danger implied by this scenario is that of P3.1.2. This statement also implies that they might return home through illegal migration channels, which could contribute to the stigmatization of migrants. On the other hand, speakers also evoked the possibility for them to leave and join another country (P3.2). Nicole Belloubet (2017d, l.376-7) thus affirmed that some of them might “shift towards other [terrorist] channels, other countries, in Asia or in the Sahel”, which refers to P3.2.2. Most of the securitizing actors who mentioned P3.2.2 worked for the MEAE, which showed that this dissemination of ISIS members was not a problem that was limited to France, but rather an issue that concerned the international community. For instance, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves le Drian (2017, l.49-51), declared that ISIS foreign fighters were “mutating” and “transferring their activities elsewhere”, which also relates to P3.2. The notion of dispersion was thus depicted as posing a threat (Le Drian 2019a, l.13; Le Drian 2019b, l.70) that was also unpredictable: “[t]hey will go to Europe or they will go elsewhere. We don’t know where they will go and I think, obviously, that’s where the danger is” (Belloubet 2019h, l.15- 6) Here, the threat evoked was not clearly identified and could refer to several pathways, from going back home and engage in terrorist activities (P3.1.2) or other criminal activities (P3.1.3) to going to a third country and engaging in terrorist activities (P3.2.2), other criminal activities (P3.2.3) or in another conflict (P3.2.5). Peacefully reintegrating/integrating (P3.1.1 and P3.2.1) was never mentioned. Against this backdrop, pathways seem to have served to mention the worst-case scenario and emphasize the scope of the potential threat represented by these individuals. All in one, the data showed that (1) French ISIS returnees were depicted as potential life- threatening threats, (2) returning pathways were used to emphasize the nature and extent of this threat and (3) France and French citizens were identified as the element under threat – or referent object.

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4.1.3) The Use of a Security Grammar Through the use of a security grammar, securitizing actors also emphasized this notion of threat. From a lexical point of view, the word “security” occurred 42 times out of 88 extracts and was most of the time associated with the notion of priority. As a matter of fact, securitizing actors consistently argued that the security of French citizens was their prime objective (Le Drian 2019a, l.2; Belloubet 2019a, l.189-90; MEAE 2019d, l.21; Le Drian 2019b, l.43-4; MEAE 2019i, l.6). By positioning themselves as concerned solely by the security of French people, the securitizing actors might have increased their legitimacy to implement measures to mitigate the existential threat French ISIS returnees posed – namely their positional power. This positional power was not given in a context where the securitizing actors often lacked precise data. Several times, members of the French government were unable to provide exact figures regarding the number of French people located in Syria and Iraq, or delivered contradicting statements (Parly 2017, l.71, 76, 81; Philippe 2017, l.86; MEAE 2019b, l.5-6; Castaner 2019b, l.5; Le Drian 2019b, l.11, 59-60; Nunez 2019, l.60, 64). On top of this, mass information media like BFMTV relayed (allegedly) false information about possible returns, like in January 2019, when they affirmed that France was considering the repatriation of 130 French ISIS departees. Although this information was immediately denied by the Minister of European and Foreign Affairs (Le Drian 2019a, l.16), it might have triggered the defiance of the public opinion and could have compromised the positional power of the Macron administration. In parallel to giving vague numbers, they stressed the notions of control and intelligence in their discourses, by affirming “[w]e know where they are” (Belloubet 2017, l.27- 8). This can also be perceived as a way for securitizing actors to assert their positional power. Therefore, the data revealed that (1) the use of a security grammar emphasized the idea that a vital threat was endangering French citizens, (2) securitizing actors had to establish and reassert their positional power. But which security measures did the Macron administration justify from 2017 to 2020?

4.2) The Response to ISIS Returnees As explored in Chapter 3, securitization entails that a securitizing actor in a position of power identifies a threat that endangers a referent object to justify the implementation of exceptional measures in order to mitigate this risk. The data revealed that the French government mainly relied on two strategies to tackle the issue of French ISIS returnees: NON-REPATRIATION and

CRIMINALIZATION.

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4.2.1) The Non-Repatriation Doctrine Chapter 2 demonstrated that the main security measures implemented by France to tackle the

ISIS returnees phenomenon were SUPPRESSION & NON-REPATRIATION and CRIMINALIZATION. How did this translate in the discourses of the members of the Macron administration between 2017 and 2020?

Firstly, SUPPRESSION was never explicitly mentioned as a way of tackling the danger posed by ISIS departees. While Minister of Armies, Florence Parly, acknowledged in 2017 that many French ISIS members were being killed in the military interventions in Northern Syria, she insisted on the fact that these operations were not targeting French citizens in particular, but ISIS fighters in general. For her, militaries “do not distinguish between the various jihadists that are fighting” (Parly 2017, l.85, 94-5). During the same interview, she also denied the existence of a “kill-list” which would prompt for the direct targeting of some individuals. Furthermore, in February 2019, State secretary at the Ministry of the Interior and counter- terrorism expert, Laurent Nunez, gave a vague response when asked about alleged targeted attacks against French ISIS departees: “I will not pronounce myself on these operations” (Nunez 2019, l.78). This absence of clear-cut answers can prompt questions: was any operation of this type actually carried-out specifically against French citizens located in this zone? The data at hand did not provide an answer to this question.

NON-REPATRIATION, on the other hand, lied at the core of the rhetoric of the securitizing actors, especially from 2017 to 2019 (Philippe 2017, l.100; Belloubet 2017c, l.302; Belloubet 2017d, l.132, 568-9, 730; Belloubet 2019d, l.91-5; Castaner 2019c, l.18). In most cases, the speakers resorted to negative structures when asked if France was undertaking repatriation schemes. Emphasizing the fact that repatriation was not a measure that was contemplated can be perceived as a way to reassure the audience. The pathway that was thus favoured was for them to stay where they were located (P2). Since it was shown before that ISIS returnees were constructed as a vital threat to French national security, the NON-REPATRIATION strategy could have served as a way to show that the danger was being contained outside of France. To another extent, these securitizing acts could also be looked at as a way to avoid having to deal with the complicated case of ISIS returnees, by leaving them in Syria and Iraq. To counter this argument, members of the government justified this NON-REPATRIATION strategy in several ways. The discourses of the French administration have been heavily relying on the sovereign right of states to prosecute suspects for criminal offences committed on their territory. In 2017, Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet, declared to the French Senate:

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Those who have been captured or have turned themselves in to the armed forces present in this zone – Iraqi authorities have notified us of their wish to try them on their territory and their will to not extradite them. We took notice of this. (Belloubet 2017d, l.573-5) According to this statement, Iraqi authorities had expressed their will to prosecute people who had committed crimes on their soil and the Minister of Justice argued that France had to respect this decision. This argument was consistently put forward over the whole corpus, which shows that the French government stood by it from 2017 to 2020. According to most securitizing actors, French ISIS departees “must be tried where they committed their crimes” (MEAE 2019d, l.10-1; Le Drian 2019b, 65; MEAE 2019h, l.7-8; Le Drian 2019e, l.3; MEAE 2019o, l.4-5; Le Drian 2019h, l.2; MEAE 2019q, l.10-1; Darrieussecq 2019, l.10-1; MEAE 2019r, l.6- 7; Le Drian 2019i, l.7-8; Lemoyne 2019a, l.8; Montchalin 2019, l.12-3; Le Drian 2020a, l.5; Belloubet 2020a, l.24, 36). Jean-Yves le Drian (2019b, l.67) also argued that French citizens have “committed murders against Iraqi people”, which is why Iraqi authorities ought to try them. This argument referring to international law has thus contributed to justify the NON-

REPATRIATION of French ISIS departees. This NON-REPATRIATION strategy can also be understood in respects to the national context: in two studies conducted in 2018 and 2019,over 80% of French people agreed that citizens who joined ISIS should not be repatriated (Ifop 2018; Odoxa 2019). The 2018 report was commissioned by the far-right mass media Valeurs Actuelles which has ties with the nationalist opposition party Rassemblement National. This poll and its repercussions in the media reveals that populist media and politicians were willing to use this topic to put forward their security and political agenda and challenge Macron’s government if it was too lenient regarding this issue. Thus, the discourses of the Macron administration could also be understood as complying with the expectations of the public opinion and trying to counter potential backlash from opposition parties.

As discussed in Chapter 1, scholars and human rights experts have pointed out that NON-

REPATRIATION was problematic on several levels, especially when it came to the protection of personal freedoms and human rights. To curtail this argument, the securitizing actors affirmed that French citizens who were being tried in Iraq benefitted from “consular protection” (Belloubet 2019f, l.15-6, 28-9) which consisted in “guaranteeing visits from French people who can make sure they are not undergoing inhuman or degrading treatments” and “ensuring that they benefit from the help of a lawyer, and then that there is an interpretation and that they can appeal the decisions” (ibid., l.20-4). By stressing the importance of this procedure, securitizing actors demonstrated their commitment to the rule of law and the fundamental right of being granted a fair trial. This was encompassed in the affirmation of the Minister of Justice, Nicole

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Belloubet, in February 2019: We make sure on the one hand that the defendant’s rights are ensured. On the other hand French citizens who are concerned benefit from consular protection. So if you want, we ensure that the right to a fair trial is respected to the minimum. (Belloubet 2019d, 21-4).

In the same interview, she added that if French citizens were sentenced to death, France would “of course intervene to demand that this sentence would not be executed” (ibid., 32-3). However, despite these measures, Iraqi did authorities did pronounce the death penalty against some French ISIS departees (Monde 2019a). In reaction, the MEAE affirmed in June 2019 that French authorities were pressuring Iraq to reverse their sentence (2019d, l.10-1). Reasserting a commitment to human rights and the rule of law can thus be seen as a way for the Macron administration to justify its NON-REPATRIATION strategy. Based on the discourses, on top of representing the safest option from a security perspective, this measure was also complying with human rights and the rule of law.

International stakes also transpired through the discourses to justify NON-REPATRIATION. A recurring argument was the need for France to respect the sovereignty of Iraq: Nicole Belloubet (2019f, l.15-6, 28-9) affirmed that the Iraqi judicial system was reliable and could be trusted to grant fair trials. One could argue that the importance of consular protection evocated above contradicts this alleged trust in local authorities. In addition, securitizing actors often used the notion of threat and crimes to justify the government’s choice to let French ISIS departees be tried in Iraq. One particular process was used by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean- Yves le Drian, several times to emphasize this: irony. Through irony, he suggested that all departees played an active role in the fighting: “I do not think that one goes to Mosul in 2016 for tourism. One goes there to fight.” (Le Drian 2018c, l.7). He resorted to this strategy on several occasions (ibid, 7-12; Le Drian 2019c, l.87-8), which might have had two effects on the audience. First, putting forward an absurd idea, namely that departees went to Syria or Iraq for tourism, creates an effect of contrast and emphasizes the idea that all those who joined ISIS played an active role in the fighting and went there with criminal intentions. Second, it suggests by extension that these individuals represented a danger for the security of France. This rhetorical process systematically preceded a statement about the fact that French ISIS departees should be tried in Iraq – namely, it served as a justification for NON-REPATRIATION through compelling imagery.

This rhetoric based on NON-REPATRIATION was sometimes contradicted, as securitizing actors referred to an expulsion scheme between Turkey and France. This agreement is better known as the “Cazeneuve Protocol” and allows Turkey to send French citizens who have ties

40 with ISIS back to France if they are captured by Turkish authorities. This protocol was evocated several times in the official discourses of the French government from 2017 to 2020 (Belloubet 2017d, l.579-80; Castaner 2019d, l.9-10; Montchalin 2019, l.19, 23-5; Belloubet 2020b, l.9- 10). When referring to it, Christophe Castaner (2019d, l.9-10) actually equated this agreement with a repatriation scheme: “the protocol known as Cazeneuve Protocol allows, in relation with Turkish authorities, to repatriate French citizens” [researcher’s emphasis]. By referring to this measure, members of the French government recognized that there was in fact a repatriation scheme for French ISIS returnees if they were arrested by Turkey. A 2019 report from the French Senate even stressed the importance of this agreement with regards to French security, citing the Cazeneuve protocol as one of the main reasons why France and Turkey should maintain good relations (Poniatowski, Todeschini and Danesi 2019). It could therefore be argued that denying the existence of any repatriation strategy like the securitizing actors have done throughout the whole corpus was inaccurate and revealed a discrepancy between the policies implemented and the discourses.

Therefore, the discourses reveal that (1) most securitizing moves presented to NON-

REPATRIATION as the preferred security measure to tackle the ISIS returnees phenomenon, (2) securitizing actors argued that NON-REPATRIATION complied with human rights and the rule of law; (3) there was a slight discrepancy between the securitizing speech-acts of the speakers and the reality of the policies implemented by France.

4.2.2) The Criminalizing Approach

Despite showing an overt preference for NON-REPATRIATION, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe (2017, l. 116) confirmed in an interview given for the first French radio morning show that 240 ISIS returnees had already come back to France by 2017. How did the French government securitize those who did come back? The security measures that were almost exclusively mentioned for ISIS returnees were those of CRIMINALIZATION. Whenever a member of the government evocated the possibility for ISIS members to come back to France, they consistently referred to the penal sanctions they would have to face. “Judicialization” (judiciarisation) upon arrival was thus mentioned over 60 times, from 2017 to 2020. The word “custody” (detention) occurred 31 times throughout the corpus and the word “monitoring” (suivi [par les autorités]) occurred 30 times. Even after getting out of prison, returnees would be monitored by French intelligence services: “a post- detention monitoring scheme awaits returnees from combat zones upon their release” (Belloubet 2017d, l.73-4). Consequently, the returning pathway that was evoked the most for

41 those who would come back was their penalization upon their homecoming (P3.1.4).

Securitizing moves regarding those who did come back were thus focused on CRIMINALIZATION. The data also revealed the use of adverbs such as “immediately” (immédiatement) and “systematically” (systematiquement), which respectively occurred 20 and 22 times next to criminalizing measures. These adverbs emphasized the fact that penal responses were instantaneous and consistently applied for all returnees. This can be interpreted as a way to reassure the audience, but it may also have implicitly contributed to constructing returnees as a threat. The fact that they would need to be prosecuted right away implies that they represented an important risk to the safety of French citizens which had to be tackled as fast as possible. Quick action was therefore needed to prevent the threat pertaining the return of French ISIS departees might have helped to justify exceptional and controversial CRIMINALIZATION measures, such as pre-trial detentions.

While CRIMINALIZATION lay at the core of the discourses, DERADICALIZATION &

DISENGAGEMENT as well as REINTEGRATION were seldomly evocated. When talking about adult returnees, these measures were depicted only once by one securitizing actor, Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet, who addressed in 2017 (2017d, l.174-5) the question of “post-incarceration follow-up policies” during a debate at the French senate. She affirmed that the government was “working on reinserting” returnees and that their rehabilitation was its ultimate goal (ibid., l.680). Despite showing a commitment to this strategy, she also acknowledged the fact that programs that ensured this REINTEGRATION had to be developed further, as they were “not sufficient to this date” (ibid. l.303-5) The Minister of Justice also showed her preference for

DISENGAGEMENT schemes over DERADICALIZATION initiatives, as she pointed out the need to “‘disengage’ people from a phenomenon of exacerbated violence” (ibid.). Although these statements did refer explicitly to reintegrating ISIS returnees, they constituted only a small portion of Nicole Belloubet’s interventions during the debate where she was speaking, which shows that these measures were not a priority.

The context in which DISENGAGEMENT & DERADICALIZATION and REINTEGRATION measures were evoked – a debate at the French senate – implies several things. Firstly, the audience of the securitizing actor was made of senators who were probably aware of the complexity of the topic before the debate and knew that the question of REINTEGRATION, or at- least post-detention measures, had to be addressed. Nicole Belloubet was answering questions from senators from various political backgrounds, a majority of whom were from right-wing opposition parties. This could explain why most of the Minister’s answers were referring to the punitive security practices put in place by the government, as the French right usually

42 positioned itself in favor of CRIMINALIZATION and NON-REPATRIATION strategies. Secondly, debates at the senate are usually not broadcasted and hardly mentioned in the media, which means that this evocation to REINTEGRATION and DISENGAGEMENT & DERADICALIZATION measures probably had a limited reach and impact on the French public opinion.

In most discourses, the securitizing actors did not mention DERADICALIZATION &

DISENGAGEMENT and REINTEGRATION policies. But was it a conscious choice? In this case, it could be seen as a way for the government to keep some part of the right-wing electorate on its side. And was the aim to appease French citizens who might have been worried about the potential release of returnees after their detention? Regardless of the reason, one may argue that this communication strategy reveals a lack of transparency regarding the fate of French ISIS returnees.

Consequently, the data shows that (1) CRIMINALIZATION was the preferred security measure to tackle the return of French ISIS departees and (2) DISENGAGEMENT &

DERADICALIZATION as well as REINTEGRATION measures were almost never addressed in the discourses. However, have the securitizing acts related to French ISIS returnees really remained consistent from 2017 to 2020?

4.2.3) An Evolution in the Discourses? Although the government affirmed that its response to the returnees phenomenon had remained the same from 2017 to 2020, some changes transpired through the discourses. This change allows to break down the data into two periods: 2017 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020 and can be mainly explained by the international context.

From 2017 to 2019, the government firmly kept the NON-REPATRIATION line: the approach was to “not repatriate them” (Belloubet 2017c, l.302) with Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet affirming in November 2017 (2017d, l.132) that “bringing back French citizens (…) is not an option”. This NON-REPATRIATION doctrine was thus presented in the discourses as the only option seriously considered by French authorities when it came to French ISIS departees. However, since some French citizens did come back from Syria since 2014, whenever repatriation was referred to by speakers, one can note the use of conditional mode: “if French citizens were repatriated to France” [researcher’s emphasis] (Belloubet 2018a, l.116). In French, this mode expresses serves to attenuate the probability of something happening. Consequently, the possibility of seeing French ISIS returnees come back to their home country might have appeared unlikely to the audience. For those who did make it back, two communications strategies were used. On the one

43 hand, the “case by case” (cas par cas) response: homecomings are depicted as an exceptional measure that is applied on a case by case basis. This was the case even when the US demanded that European countries repatriate their citizens located in Syria and Iraq, as Nicole Belloubet (2019b, l.10-1) asserted: “at this point France is not answering to these injunctions and is keeping the policy it has been implementing, which is a case by case reception” [researcher’s emphasis]. The second communication strategy was that of stability, as speakers argued that the French government had kept a consistent discourse and approach to the (non-)repatriation of its departees: We never changed our policy from this point of view, first, there are less returnees at the moment, people returning from combat zones, we have less of them, but the policy is always the same. (Belloubet 2018b, l.7-9) This notion of a consistent response to the ISIS returnees phenomenon could also be interpreted as a way to reassure the French audience about the fact that the French government did not intend to repatriate ISIS departees in the first place. From early 2019 to 2020, the discourses have slightly changed, despite speakers affirming that France kept a consistent position. As a matter of fact, in January 2019, Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet (2019a, l.14-5), declared that leaving French citizens to be tried in Iraq and Syria was “not the only scenario anymore”. This statement revealed two things: firstly, it stressed that NON-REPATRIATION used to be the only scenario considered by the French government from 2017 to 2019; secondly, it showed that repatriating French ISIS returnees would now be considered as an option. She declared in the same interview: “it is, I believe, collectively, rather in our interest to make sure that they come back, instead of leaving them free, without knowing where they are” (ibid., 15-6). Repatriating French departees was thus presented as a way of tackling the potential danger posed by French ISIS departees and a way of preventing these individuals to leave the conflict zone (P3) without control. As a matter of fact, the notion of control was key in the discourses, but speakers remained vague regarding the pathways that these individuals might follow. One could argue that the underlying meaning of such statements was that they might engage in terrorist activities, in France (P3.1.2) or in a third country (P3.2.2). Against this backdrop, the MEAE argued in press releases that France was “preparing all eventualities” (2019e, l.5-6) and “examining all options to avoid the evasion of these people” (2019g, l.5). In October 2019, Nicole Belloubet (2019i, l.7) nuanced this change of discourses by saying that “unyielding [was] not the right word” to describe the Macron administration’s NON-REPATRIATION response to returnees, but rather that it had “an attitude that is adapted”. In parallel, a few weeks later, Minister of Interior,

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Christophe Castaner (2019d, l.6-7) declared: “[w]e do not wish to repatriate them when it is possible, like it is the case in Iraq, for them to be arrested and tried locally”, therefore confirming his preference for French ISIS departees to stay in the region (P2). Despite this, the data still revealed that the government’s position did change from a strict NON-REPATRIATION doctrine to a more flexible approach. The CRIMINALIZATION response, on the other hand, remained unchanged for those who did come back from 2017 to 2020. The fact that the French government’s discourses showed a more nuanced approach from early 2019 can be explained by two main events that impacted the local context in Iraq and Syria but also the broader international context: the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and Iraq from late 2018 and second Turkey’s offensive against the Kurds in North-East Syria in late 2019. Firstly, in October 2018, the Trump administration decided to withdraw troops from Syria on the ground that the war against ISIS was won (Specia 2019). This led to further instability in the North-East of the country, an area under tension where a relative balance was hardly maintained even with the support of US militaries by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. With this withdrawal, the Kurds could no longer guarantee that they would be able to keep the prisoners that they had captured, many of whom were French ISIS members. This event was mentioned in the discourses as an impactful factor regarding the situation in Syria and in fine how France would deal with its ISIS departees. As Jean-Yves le Drian pointed out in January 2019 (2019a, l.13), “the American withdrawal risks to lead to the dispersion of terrorists”, a concern that was also raised a few days before by Minister of Interior Christophe Castaner (2019a, l.26-7). From that point, the possibility of repatriating French ISIS returnees was evocated more often and correlated with the withdrawal of US troops. As a matter of fact, members of the Macron administration also had to respond to Donald Trump’s incentives for EU member states to actively take their citizens back, like the tweet he wrote in February 2019: The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them...... (Trump 2019) In reaction to this statement, Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet (2019b, l.7-9), argued that France’s position had not changed and that it would not “answer to these injunctions”. She then reasserted that the question of returns was treated on a case by case basis. This statement seems at odds with the earlier affirmations by other securitizing actors that France was now considering more options than NON-REPATRIATION. At the same time, it might have been part of a communication strategy to show that the government remained firm and in control of the

45 situation in order to reassure a worried public opinion. The second factor that triggered an evolution in the discourses was Turkey’s attack in the North-East of Syria in October 2019. The Turkish offensive in the region was motivated by its intent to dismantle the semi-autonomous Kurdish area established by the Kurds who fought against ISIS together with the international coalition (Weise 2019). These events prompted concerns for EU member states, who feared further destabilization of the region, partly because of the question of European ISIS departees: one could no longer rely on the Kurds’ ability to maintain their prisoners in detention. Consequently, on October 17, 2019, Minister of Europe and foreign affairs Jean-Yves le Drian (2019j, l.11-2) expressed his concerns regarding the “new risks caused by the Turkish incursion in North-East Syria”. Moreover, these renewed geopolitical tensions in the region seemed to impact the French government’s discourses on the ISIS departees phenomenon. This transpired in a declaration from the MEAE on October 14, 2019 (2019u, l.23-4) which stated that France had taken “measures to reinforce the security of the national territory in this context.” Once again, the possibility that ISIS returnees might come home and engage in terrorist activities (P3.1.2) shone through this statement. In her allocutions from October and November 2019, the Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet (2019i; 2019j), reminded the audience of the CRIMINALIZATION framework established by France to deal with returning French ISIS members, which one could interpret as a way of acknowledging that this scenario was probable in the near future. In both cases, one can observe that, as suggested in the securitization theory, functional actors played a significant role in influencing states’ decisions and security measures. Here, one may argue that what used to be the main security measure to respond to the ISIS returnees phenomenon in France, NON-REPATRIATION, was reconsidered because of the decisions of external actors and a complex geopolitical context. Nonetheless, it also appears that the French government still tried to emphasize the fact that if repatriations occurred, these would be on a case by case basis. This can be interpreted as a way for the Macron administration to reassure a worried public opinion but also to prevent criticism from opposition parties and the media, which also constitute functional actors. All in one, although the discourses have evolved, one cannot argue that this change was drastic and very obvious. Rather, the official discourses of the Macron administration became more nuanced in order to adapt to harsh geopolitical changes. To conclude, the data revealed that (1) there was a slight change in the discourses from 2019 onwards, (2) functional actors seem to have had a decisive influence on the securitizing acts of the Macron administration.

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Chapter 5: Influencing Variables, Indirect Securitization & Spillover Effect

The previous chapter showed that, thanks to an established positional power, the French government constructed French ISIS departees as a vital threat to the security of the French nation in order to justify the implementation of security measures to mitigate this threat. It also showed the instrumental the audience and functional actor were, as well as the intertwining dynamics between securitizing acts such as policies and discourses. Now that this direct securitization process has been analysed, this chapter will look at whether securitizing acts are influenced by variables like gender and age. It will then apply the indirect securitization theory to the data before trying to understand if the securitization of French ISIS returnees has spilled over other topics.

5.1) Age & Gender as Influencing Variables An important feature that the data revealed is that gender and age were important variables that influenced the discourses. The analysis in the previous chapter based itself on discourses concerning adult French ISIS members – that is, people who were over 18 years old at the moment of the discourses – irrespectively of their gender and age. But to what extent have these variables impacted the discourses and what does this reveal about the French policies regarding ISIS returnees?

5.1.1) Gender as an influencing variable In 2018, 17% of French ISIS departees and 28% of returnees were women (Scherrer et al. 2018, 33). The role of females in terrorism and in particular their involvement within the ranks of ISIS has been hard to define. For a long time, their passive and naïve role was underlined, but research pointed out that most women “do not fit the stereotype of the submissive, docile woman. Rather these girls – for most of them are very young – appear to act based on their own conviction” (Bakker and de Leede 2015, 9). Female departees are also believed to have played a role in recruiting ISIS members (Scherrer et al. 2018, 37). Thus, one may wonder: did the discourses depict women as naïve individuals who joined ISIS to find a partner and carry out domestic tasks, or were they presented as playing a role as essential as that of men departees? Because most women did not pick up arms, and because there is often a lack of evidence against them, female returnees who make it back to France cannot be prosecuted as easily as

47 male returnees. During a 2017 debate at the senate, Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet (2017d l.50-1), pointed out this phenomenon to explain women who came back and were not convicted, would be “monitored by intelligence services to prevent any potential threat.” As such, one could deduce that securitizing actors did not seem to make a distinction between male and female returnees who were all considered as a potential danger. Nicole Belloubet (ibid., l.293- 4) also dismissed the argument that most women travelled to Syria “fooled by a sort of romantic mirage, believing that they would find there the ideal husband”. The Minister of Justice thus emphasized the fact that female departees had other push and pull factors for joining ISIS. She added: Indeed, we consider that their role was not purely domestic. We know that, in fact, their contribution fully fell within the construction of the Islamic State. They wished to educate the children and to support the Caliphate through their adhesion and their presence. (ibid., l.296-9) The Minister of Justice thus made the government’s position clear here – women were regarded as having taken an active role within ISIS and thus deserved the same response as men, meaning systematic CRIMINALIZATION (ibid., l.296). The notion that adults had to be treated equally, regardless of their gender was a recurring theme (Le Drian 2019e, l.3-4; MEAE 2019q, l.9-10; MEAE 2019r, l.5-6). For instance, Minister of Europe and foreign affairs, Jean-Yves le Drian (2019d, l.13-4), stressed that female departees “participated in the action of this jihadist and terrorist organization.” Thus, the discourses of the French government highlighted the active role of women within ISIS in order to motivate similar responses. The notion of motherhood was another key-component of the discourses addressing the specific situation of female departees. For instance, French women who joined ISIS were sometimes referred to as “mothers” rather than “fighters”. In 2019, Jean-Yves le Drian even juxtaposed the term “mother” and “jihadist”, which stressed the fact that, despite being mothers, these individuals were still considered members of a terrorist group. Moreover, mothers were often the ones demanding their repatriation together with their children (Le Drian 2020b, l.44- 5). On that note, Jean-Yves le Drian (2019d, l.24) argued that those vouching for the repatriation of women “instrumentalize the fate of children to obtain the return of the mothers”. This idea was part of a discursive strategy that relied on the idea that one should not be naïve regarding ISIS females and the threat they represented (Le Drian 2019c, l.86-8; Le Drian 2019d, l.17). Such statements might have blurred the nuances between the roles female and male French ISIS departees played. They might also have contributed to the climate of fear among parts of the French public, by implying that they all represented a threat to national security. All in one, one can conclude from the data that (1) female ISIS departees were depicted

48 as serious a threat as male departees and (2) gender did not seem to have an important influence on securitizing acts.

5.1.2) The Special Treatment of Children In the discourses, children were presented as a specific category of returnees which was systematically distinguished from the adults. The response to children returnees was thus quite different from that of adults. Throughout the corpus, securitizing actors gave particular attention to the question of children. They were the ones that were referred to the most in official communications about ISIS returnees, with the word “children” occurring 112 times in the 88 extracts under study. When referring to them, the securitizing actors often stressed the vulnerability of the children who are in the most precarious conditions by reminding the audience that they were often orphans or isolated minors (Belloubet 2019a, l.65; MEAE 2019l, l.1; MEAE 2019m, l.9; Le Drian 2019c, l.60, 68, 117; Le Drian 2019e, l.11; MEAE 2019p, l.1; Le Drian 2019h, l.5; Belloubet 2019i, l.8). The discourses regarding these minors varied through time and depending on the speakers. Sometimes the innocence of children who were brought by their parents to Syria or who were born there was emphasized (Le Drian 2020b, l.44-5). Other times, the speakers referred to the potential danger that they might represent and described them as “traumatized”, “indoctrinated” and even potential “ticking-time bombs” (Philippe 2017, l.33- 4). By resorting to martial imagery, the latter term might have contributed to construct these children as a pending potential threat to national security. In the same line, Minister of Armies, Florence Parly, also argued in 2017 (l.111, 116) that young children might “have been already very formatted” and that some of them could be child-terrorists. Such statements released on mass media might also have created a feeling of fear and defiance from the French public opinion towards those minors. This might explain why most French people were not in favor of repatriating these children in February 2019 (Ifop 2018; Odoxa 2019). There are therefore reasons to believe that these statements have helped to justify the case by case doctrine that was also applied to children. As a matter of fact, between 2017 and 2020, several minors came back to France, as stressed by the various members of the government (Parly 2018a, l.69-70; Le Drian 2018c, l.18; Parly 2018b, l.27; Le Drian 2019a, l.42; Le Drian 2019e, l.11-3; MEAE 2019p, l.1; Darrieussecq 2019, l.64-5; Belloubet Le Drian 2020a, l.16-7, 19-20). When it came to children, securitizing actors recognized having organized repatriation schemes to bring back children from Syria and Iraq. According to Jean-Yves le Drian (2019a, l.17-8), “for children, there is a

49 special treatment”, which explains why he used the word “repatriate” when referring to the measures taken to tackle the issue of children returnees (Le Drian 2018a, l.32; Le Drian 2019i, l.12). This approach can be explained by the pressure from functional actors such as the Red Cross, which was mentioned by some speakers (Le Drian 2018a, l.32; Le Drian 2018c, l.18; Le Drian 2019a, l.18). However, these statements concerned mainly isolated minors and orphans. Regarding children located in Syria and Iraq alongside their parents, the government’s position remained firm: “the future of these children will be there if the humanitarian conditions allow for it” (Le Drian 2019c, l.115-6). However, the critical humanitarian situation in the camps in North-East Syria where many French ISIS departees were stranded was acknowledged in relation to the decision to repatriate some of the children (Belloubet 2017b, l.60; Le Drian 2019c, l.115-6). As the government openly maintained its case by case policy, the data revealed that the French administration was milder when it came to dealing with children returnees, but this was mostly the case for the most vulnerable of them on a case by case basis. For the rest, securitizing actors still relied heavily on NON-REPATRIATION. For those who did come back, though, the discourses relied heavily on a judicial response, although this did not always equate with CRIMINALIZATION. Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet (2017d, l.103-4; 2019c, l.86-90), insisted that once they arrived in France, the children were systematically presented to a judge for juveniles. Each child was treated on a case by case basis, but most of the time, according to the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe (Service Communication Hôtel de Matignon 2017, 90), child care could be “criminal, social, educative, even sanitary”. Nicole Belloubet (2019i, l.26) also pointed out that, while “children don’t necessarily have to be tried”, especially when aged under five, “adolescents can, if need be, be sanctioned penally, whether they are child soldiers or not” (2017d, l.338-9). This distinction between young children and adolescents can be perceived as implying that older children might have played or could still play an active role in terrorist activities.

On the other hand, for younger children, REINTEGRATION was often put forward by the securitizing actors. In a 2017 speech, Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, declared: “[i]t is our duty to seek the insertion [of these children] in our national communities” (Service Communication Hôtel de Matignon 2017, l.96). Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet, backed this statement in late 2019 (2019h, l.28-9) by saying that children “must be taken care of medically, psychologically, in an educative manner and placed in places where they will retrieve a normal life.” These references to REINTEGRATION, an option that was hardly mentioned when talking about adults, showed that the French government’s approach to children returnees upon their return was different than that of adults. The potential traumas they

50 had likely experienced were also evocated: “the disorders that these children may have, which can be very serious disorders, should be evaluated” (Darrieussecq 2019, l.55-6). This statement pronounced in August 2019 was the first time that the question of traumas and PTSD of French ISIS returnees was addressed explicitly in the whole corpus. To conclude, the discourses showed that (1) special securitization acts were implemented to deal with children returnees, (2) adolescent children returnees were sometimes constructed as a potential threat, (3) orphans and isolated minors were the ones benefitting from less harsh securitization speech-acts.

5.2) Indirect Securitization & Spill-over Effect Based on Eroukhmanoff’s indirect securitization theory, this study will look at whether French ISIS departees are securitized in a covert way, with members of the French government resorting to implicit communication strategies. The data will also reveal that the question of French ISIS returnees has a spill-over effect, as it also serves to justify measures such as restrictive policies or is instrumentalized to serve a broader political agenda of the Macron administration.

5.2.1) Indirect Securitization As explained in Chapter 3, the premise of the concept of indirect securitization coined by Eroukhmanoff is that political discourses contain covert meanings which allow for the implementation of exceptional measures to tackle a vital threat, without explicitly saying so. This study argues that some of the data may be analyzed through this sub-category of the securitization theory. One of the most striking examples of indirect securitization is the use of a “let’s not be naïve” rhetoric which occurs several times in the corpus. On November 13 2017, in an interview he gave on the occasion of the two-years commemorations of the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe declared in the first French morning radio show: [O]ne must not be naive. And I have sometimes heard – including on television – French women and men who were there [in Syria or Iraq] and who were expressing a form of disillusion. I am extremely careful and not naïve regarding what this means. [researcher’s emphasis] (Philippe 2017, l.75-9) The question he was answering was whether he agreed with the Paris State Attorney François Mollins who argued that French ISIS returnees were more disappointed than repenting. One could interpret this statement as a way for the Prime Minister to imply that French ISIS departees did not feel remorse and would always remain committed to ISIS’s extremist ideology. Consequently, this quote could be perceived as an indirect way of saying that these

51 individuals will constitute a never-ending threat for national security. In fact, this statement was a way for the Prime Minister to start unfolding the NON-REPATRIATION and CRIMINALIZATION measures to tackle the issue of ISIS returnees.. The same rhetoric can be identified in Jean-Yves le Drian’s “we should not let ourselves be manipulated” (2019c, l.84-5). Again, one could argue that the underlying idea here is that French ISIS returnees all have ill intentions towards France. In this particular case, le Drian implied that French ISIS female departees were using their children to manipulate politicians into organizing their repatriation. After hearing such a statement, the audience might be keen to accept the exceptional measures that are implemented against French ISIS departees. On the other hand, securitizing actors also tried to reassure their audience by sometimes arguing that French ISIS returnees were not that much of a threat. During a debate at the Senate, Nicole Belloubet went against statements that were delivered in the press about the dangers represented by these individuals and stated: the threat does not wane. One of the difficulties is that we do not know exactly where it might come from. I am not certain, for my part, that it emanates from the people who are coming back from Syria. (Belloubet 2017d, 725-7) Here, the Minister of Justice was explicitly stating that she did not believe that returnees represented a vital threat to the security of the country. However, the whole discourse surrounding this statement was centred on the measures taken by France to punish and control these individuals. One could thus argue that here, the implicit meaning was ‘even if they are not a vital threat, we should be careful’, or in other words that it justified a ‘better safe than sorry’ policy. Despite representing the French government, the securitizing actors sometimes expressed their personal opinions, which can also have several indirect effects. In February 2019, when Laurent Nunez (2019, l.78) said that he would not pronounce himself on whether or not there had been specific elimination operations targeting French citizens located in Syria and Iraq, the absence of denial can lead one to doubt whether such operations have indeed been carried out or not. The audience might also reject the idea that such a securitizing act had been undertaken by the French government if it were openly revendicated. On the other hand, such a statement can also justify such actions by implying: ‘I will not pronounce myself on this matter, but I am in favour of directly targeting individuals who are deemed dangerous for national security.’ In other instances, speakers expressed their personal opinion regarding a topic which might indirectly influence the audience. This was the case when Jean-Yves le Drian (2019b,

52 l.99) answered to a journalist who asked him whether he had changed his position on the nationality-stripping debate, as he used to be in favor of this measure since 2015: “[n]o, but the debate was closed.” Here, the Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs was openly showing his support for stripping French citizens who joined ISIS from their nationality. This controversial measure sparked a lot of debates in France as it was accused of targeting unjustly binational and naturalized individuals, most of whom belonged to minorities (Monde 2015). His answer could be interpreted as supporting this measure and could thus pave the way for indirect securitizing moves targeting minorities and making a distinction between different French citizens. Here, the fact that the securitizing actor implicitly justified measures targeting specific groups can be considered a prime example of Erhoukmanoff’s indirect securitization theory. As she points out, this is not necessarily the intention of the speaker when they deliver their speech-act, but the consequences are nonetheless the same. Therefore, the data reveals that (1) implicit communication might pave the way for indirect securitization acts, (2) notwithstanding the speaker’s intentions, indirect securitization could have a negative impact on minorities. More specifically, discourses on French ISIS returnees might have served the securitization of other issues.

5.2.2) Spill-over Effect As a matter of fact, the issue of French ISIS returnees was linked to other topics several times throughout the corpus, such as immigration, personal freedoms, the enhancement of EU cooperation and the broader French counter-terrorism strategy. Measures related to these topics were either overt, which means they belonged to direct securitization, or covert, which means they fell within the scope of indirect securitization. The first topic that was referred to throughout the corpus in relation with the French ISIS returnees phenomenon was immigration and border controls. In 2017, Nicole Belloubet declared: The [Ministry of] Justice has an extremely strong will to strive with the police against irregular immigration channels, which can contribute to let in individuals with ties to terrorist networks in France, even if of course this is not the case of most clandestine migrants. (Belloubet 2017d, l.223-5) In order to not be accused of stigmatizing migrants, the Minister of Justice reminded her audience that most clandestine migrants are not travelling to France for terrorist purposes. Still, this statement implied that some individuals do use migration routes for such purposes and that France should tackle this phenomenon. To some extent, although Nicole Belloubet might have genuinely been trying to not discriminate against migrants, she was still justifying the

53 implementation of exceptional measures to be taken against them through the ISIS returnees phenomenon and the potential threat they might constitute for national security. If this is an example of indirect securitization, migrants have also been directly securitized by the French government. In a joint declaration with Belgium pronounced in 2018, Edouard Philippe asserted France’s commitment to “support with determination the reinforcement of external European Union borders, in particular in the context of a possible return of foreign terrorist fighters on European soil.” This is one of the first times that the EU was evocated as a partner securitizing actor, as the Prime Minister referred to the tools deployed by the Union to tackle this issue, such as the reformation of FRONTEX or the systematization of controls at EU’s external borders. In this case, the link between immigration and ISIS returnees was clearly established and the EU was presented as a co-securitizing actor to strive against illegal immigration. This statement could further people’s belief that ISIS returnees plan to use immigration routes to come to Europe and perpetrate terrorist attacks. Another member of the government, Marc Fesneau, declared in 2019 (l.28-9) that controlling French ISIS departees was crucial in order to prevent them from “coming back to France through indirect routes (…) because we know how it happens, they cross the borders, sometimes it’s hard to make all the controls”. The same year, Christophe Castaner (2019c, l.20- 1) referred to some individuals who might come back to France “in an illegal manner, by crossing the border”. In both cases, the immigration argument was used to justify the fact that the French government might adjust its NON-REPATRIATION strategy, in case some French ISIS departees were released due to the unstable geopolitical situation in North-East Syria. But by doing so, the securitizing actors provide a fertile ground for a narrative justifying tightening border control measures. This need to “ensure security at borders particularly” was also stressed in an MEAE press release following a meeting between the member States of the international coalition against ISIS. Once again, border security was presented as a key element in tackling the ISIS returnees phenomenon. There thus seems to be a spill over effect on the topic of immigration in the discourses. In some contexts, like when it comes to controls within the EU, not only immigrants but also fundamental freedoms were securitized, such as the right to move freely between member states. On the contrary to what was expected at the beginning of this research, such an obvious spill over effect can hardly be observed when it comes to the indirect securitization of Islam. Members of the French government seem to have paid a lot of attention in their communication to not stigmatize Muslims nor build a direct correlation between Islam and ISIS departees. However, one can still argue that the use of the term ‘jihadists’ and its constant association with

54 acts of terror and the Islamic State can participate to the creation of stigma towards the Muslim community in France. As it was described in Chapter 1, ‘jihadists’ is the second most used term to refer to French ISIS departees. In a context where the place of Islam in France and French culture has been at the heart of political debates, the fact that this denomination is preferred to globally adopted legal terms to designate these individuals, namely FF and FTF, is worth noticing. Expressions like Minister of Interior Christophe Castaner’s “people who have gone for jihad” (2019a, l.7), might also contribute to build a collective understanding of the word “jihad” solely as an “armed struggle (…) to fight against the external enemis of Islam” (Souleimanov 2018, 22). As a consequence, the other meaning of the word, namely the “internal struggle or “great jihad” (al-jihad al-akbar) to improve oneself spiritually” (ibid.) is disappearing from public debates and collective perception. One could thus argue that, even without bearing ill-intention towards French Muslim communities, securitizing actors still contributed to a climate of tension and to the stigmatization of this minority in their discourses. Finally, an unexpected spillover effect of the discourses was the instrumentalization of the French ISIS returnees phenomenon to serve a pro-EU agenda. In 2017, during her debate at the senate, Nicole Belloubet vouched for a European response to the ISIS returnees phenomenon. In this debate, the French Minister of Justice also expressed her enthusiasm for the sharing of best practices on EU level. This debate was one of the only occasions where the EU and the concrete role it played in the response to the ISIS returnees phenomenon was clearly mentioned in the corpus. Building a European strategy to find solutions to this phenomenon was also mentioned during a joint declaration by the French and Belgian Prime Ministers, where the will to reinforce cooperation between EU member states in terms of defence and border control was expressed (Service Communication Hôtel de Matignon 2017). From May 2019, because of the difficult situation in the North-East of Syria, the possibility of creating a European court to try EU ISIS departees in this region was evoked by the MEAE: The particular context in Syria leads us to study the possibility of creating a judicial mechanism with a specific international dimension. Qualified services are looking into this option. This reflection will have to be enlarged to the European partners who have also contemplated this hypothesis. (MEAE 2019o, l.5-8) Nicole Belloubet also talked about the possibility of creating an international court several times in 2019, where European magistrates could try European citizens located in Syria or Iraq (Belloubet 2019f, l.75-6; Belloubet 2019g, l.11-7). However, she also evocated the difficulties linked to the implementation of such a project. Minister of Europe and foreign affairs Jean- Yves le Drian, also mentioned the possibility of “establishing a judicial mechanism with our European colleagues” (2019i, l.17-8) to try European ISIS returnees, which he affirmed was

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“the only good solution” (ibid., l.23-5) for both adults and children. Thus, in 2019, members of the Macron administration put forward the idea of a European collaboration for dealing with EU ISIS departees. While the Turkish attack on the Kurdish autonomous region in the North of Syria seems to have put this hypothesis on hold, it also served the EU-enthusiastic agenda of the Macron administration. In the absence of a reaction from the US to the worsening of the situation in the North-East of Syria, State Secretary at the MEAE Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne declared: We see that the US are not an ally, in any case, that is totally consistent in taking position, we see that with this disengagement, and I think that, to some extent, it must incentivize, us Europeans, more than ever, to have an awakening and to build this strategic and defense autonomy. (Lemoyne 2019b, l.44-6) This quote by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne could be interpreted as an invitation to tackle the issue of ISIS returnees on a European level. In addition, such statements might have contributed to justify the need for a European defence project that President Emmanuel Macron has been defending since his election (En Marche, n.d.). Thus, the data reveals that, in the discourses of the members of the government, the topic of French ISIS returnees also allowed the securitizing actors to put forward their EU defence agenda. To conclude, the data revealed that when securitizing French ISIS returnees, the French government (1) directly and indirectly securitized other issues such as immigration, fundamental freedoms and Islam and (2) put forward its pro-EU political agenda.

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Chapter 6: Discussion

This chapter will put the results of the analysis into perspective, by basing itself on previous literature on the topic of returning FF, but also by drawing on other theories such as the “culture of fear” coined by Frank Furedi.

6.1) The Over-Securitization of a “Low-Probability High-Impact” Threat? Based on the analysis of the data, one may argue that by emphasizing the dangerous potential of ISIS returnees, the French government has been constructing them as a security threat to the physical safety of French citizens (=referent object) between 2017 and 2020. In this context, the discourses (=securitizing acts) of the Macron administration (=securitizing actor) have served to justify the implementation of measures to mitigate this threat, namely NON-

REPATRIATION and CRIMINALIZATION. These measures seem to have been influenced by external powers, such as Turkey and the USA, but also on a national level by the public opinion and opposition parties (=functional actors), as well as by the geopolitical and national context of the war against ISIS (=distal context). Therefore, one may argue that the issue of French ISIS returnees was securitized by the French government in its official communications. As it does not appear that this securitization occurred as a binary moment, this study seems to confirm the post-Copenhagen school’s argument that securitization is a process. Based on this study’s theoretical framework, the securitization of French ISIS returnees by the French government can be mapped out as follows:

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Figure 3. Mapping of the securitization of French ISIS returnees by the French government between 2017 and 2020

Securitizing Act(s) - Discourses of the French government - Policies (NON-REPATRIATION & CRIMINALIZATION) => Emphasis on danger

Safety of French Citizens

(= existentially threatened by ISIS returnees) Actors Context - Members of the French government (=securitizing actors) - Different types of texts and discursive practices (=proximate - International actors such as Turkey, context) the US and national actors such as public opinion, opposition (=functional - National & geopolitical context (= actors) distal context) - French citizens and/or policy makers (=audience)

Now that it was established that the French government indeed securitized the return of French ISIS departees in its official communications, one may wonder about the scope of this process. As a matter of fact, between 2017 and 2020, these individuals were not depicted as the “low-probability, high-impact” phenomenon Bakker and de Roy van Zuijdewijn (2015) observe among returning FF. The discourses did not account for the wide variety of pathways that they might follow. On the contrary, the rhetoric of the securitizing actors relied heavily on implying that returnees might engage in terrorist activities (P3.1.2 and P3.2.2) to justify their

CRIMINALIZATION (P3.1.4) or their detention by local authorities (P3.2.4). This depiction of ISIS returnees does not seem to take into account findings of studies on returning FF and their involvement in terrorist plots (Hegghammer 2013; Leduc 2016; Malet and Hayes 2018). In fact, the nature and extent of the threat was rarely explicitly mentioned. Rather, to illustrate the potential danger posed by French ISIS returnees, the discourses often alluded to past events such as the November 2015 Paris attacks, which appealed to the emotions of the recipients. In addition, the discourses under study failed to address the complexity of the situation. For instance, female ISIS departees were consistently depicted as individuals who went to Syria

58 with the intention to fight, and who should not benefit from special treatment. This description probably conveyed to the public the idea that they represented a threat and had malicious intentions towards France. While Bakker & de Leede (2015, 8) argue that the idea of innocent women who naively joined the ranks of ISIS out of love is not representative of the reality, they also stress that, in general, there are reasons to believe that females did “not actively take part in the fighting.” Children, on the other hand, were always treated as a special category of individuals. Still, some statements implied that some of them could represent a danger to national security, especially adolescents – and that those who did should face penal consequences. This emphasis on their potential criminal nature goes against international law which considers that “all children recruited into armed or terrorist groups are, in the first instance, the victims of crimes committed by adults” (Scherrer et al. 2018, 37). As such, the discourses of the Macron administration might have eclipsed the fact that children must first and foremost be considered victims. Altogether, the notion of victimhood was almost never touched upon, be it for children or for female departees, who, despite their involvement with ISIS, were probably more exposed to violence and exactions than males (Duffy 2018, 164). Consequently, the data revealed that, by focusing on the notion of threat, the official communications of the French government failed to present the bigger picture pertaining to the return of French ISIS departees.

To tackle this threat, the Macron administration relied on NON-REPATRIATION and

CRIMINALIZATION. The NON-REPATRIATION strategy appeared to be a way to neutralize the threat by keeping it outside of France. Its implications will be explored further in the next section. When it came to the CRIMINALIZATION of those who did come back, the discourses emphasized the fact that returnees were judicialized and would be monitored even after their incarceration. For the audience, highlighting such strategies might have emphasized the idea that the threat was indefinite and that returnees might commit a terrorist attack at any point, even after serving their time in prison. In fact, existing research demonstrated that in general, returning FF “do not appear to pose an indefinite threat” (Malet and Hayes 2018, 16). One may thus interrogate oneself: were these measure proportionate to the danger represented by French ISIS returnees? And was the threat as high as what the discourses under study implied? This study argues that the way the French government addressed the issue of ISIS returnees in its official communications was a case of over-securitization. By over- securitization, it is meant here that the degree of threat as presented in the discourses was higher than what the reality is. As such, the measures taken to tackle this threat were not necessarily proportionate to the actual risk posed by French ISIS returnees. In addition, as shown in Figure

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4, the referent object in the discourses is the physical safety of French citizens. However, Bakker and de Roy van Zuijdewijn (2015, 17) argue that this phenomenon ought “not only to be regarded as a physical security threat, but also, if not primarily, a social and political threat to European societies.” Against this backdrop, the discourses seem to have emphasized the physical risk in a disproportionate manner, compared to the actual threat ISIS returnees might represent for the cohesion of the French society. To some extent, one could even argue that the discourses contributed to creating a climate of tension and defiance which could have contributed to the stigmatization of some communities and minorities. In this respect, it can be argued that the official communications of the French government participated in an over- securitization of the ISIS returnees phenomenon.

6.2) Turning a blind-eye on human rights? This section will suggest that this over-securitization served to justify measures that went against the rule of law and bargained with human rights.

As demonstrated in the analysis, the data confirmed that NON-REPATRIATION was the primary response chosen by France, as observed by Scherrer and al. (2018). Chapter 1 and 2 showed that this strategy was considered problematic in academia for a number of reasons, ranging from the lack of legitimacy for some authorities to try these individuals to the absence of guarantee that they would be offered a fair trial and decent detention conditions (Capone 2019). In this context, the over-securitization of the ISIS returnees phenomenon might have served to curb these human rights concerns. Several aspects of the discourses can be perceived as ways of showing the legitimacy of this measure. First, the main narrative which relied on the idea that French ISIS departees ought to be tried where they committed their crimes, based on international law. Second, local authorities were presented as competent and reliable to grant these individuals a fair trial as well as humane detention conditions, which would also be ensured via the consular protection. Third, the notion of rule of law was a recurring element in the discourses and the securitizing actors consistently asserted its crucial importance. Combined with the constant idea of the threat French ISIS returnees represent according to the discourses,

NON-REPATRIATION could be perceived by the public opinion as a good strategy to keep this threat out of France, all the while sticking to French and European core values such as the rule of law and fundamental rights. However, these discourses could also be interpreted as a way for the French government to justify the most convenient scenario to tackle the ISIS returnees phenomenon, while knowing

60 their human rights might not be respected. For instance reports from NGOs such as Human Rights Watch (2019) have shown that French ISIS departees were detained in dire conditions in camps in the North-East of Syria and expressed particular concerns regarding the fate of children. In addition, in 2019, France was suspected to have transferred French ISIS departees from camps in Northern Syria to Iraq. UN human rights observer, Agnès Callamard, denounced these exactions as well as France’s non-repatriation strategy, claiming that the right to life and to a fair trial of these individuals was compromised (Monde 2019b). On top of this, eleven French citizens were sentenced to death by Iraqi authorities in the summer of 2019 (Monde 2019a), which contradicted France’s commitment to put an end to the death penalty. Despite securitizing actors insisting in the discourses that Iraqi authorities were urged to revisit these sentences, this situation still revealed the negative outcomes a strategy such as NON-

REPATRIATION might have. In parallel, for those who came back, legal experts pointed out the limits of the CRIMINALIZATION policies and their overlapping with human rights, both for returnees and their families (Safi 2017). Therefore, there are reasons to believe that the human rights of French ISIS returnees have been infringed due to the responses favored in the government’s official communications.

As shown in the analysis, in order to justify the NON-REPATRIATION strategy, the discourses of the French government mainly emphasized their crimes, rather than the traumas these female departees might have experienced. Children, on the other hand, were addressed as a special category of individuals by the securitizing actors. NON-REPATRIATION was not systematically applied and operations to bring back some isolated children and orphans were carried out several times between 2017 and 2020. However for minors located with their families the NON-REPATRIATION strategy still prevailed in the discourses. When talking about repatriating children with their mothers or parents in general, securitizing actors argued that only the children may be considered for repatriation only on a case by case basis. As most of them were located in detention camps with their mothers, both international organizations (Human Rights Watch 2019) and family members of these individuals (Villa 2020b) voiced their concerns about leaving French children to live in the insecurity of the camps where they were stranded. Ultimately, such pressure from civil actors seems to have worked: since in June 2020, France repatriated some 28 children from the North of Syria (Jeannerot 2020). But such operations come with the risk of going against a public opinion who expressed its opposition to the repatriation of ISIS departees, including children. One could however wonder whether the fact that the discourses sometimes implied that they might be dangerous could have influenced the way they were perceived by public opinion.

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In addition, the data revealed that the discourses of the French government might have contributed to the stigmatization of migrants and Muslims. Although some speakers tried to mitigate this effect, on several occasions a link was created between border controls, immigration and counter-terrorism policies. Baker-Beall observed a similar phenomenon in his study of EU discourses and argued that: the move to securitize migration, travel and the EU border through the linking of these areas to counter-terrorism and the returning foreign fighter issue has another important consequence: it further constructs all migrants, albeit implicitly, as a potential source of terrorist threat, whereby travelers and migrant populations are now a primary target of preemptive surveillance for counter-terrorism purposes. (Baker-Beall 2019, 450) In his opinion, such arguments are not justified since most terrorist attacks in the EU have been perpetrated by local citizens who never travelled abroad. By incorporating the ISIS returnees phenomenon to its counter-terrorism narrative, the French government has also been securitizing the issues of immigration and border controls. Consequently, just like van Ginkel and al. (2016, 15) argue, returning FF and migrants “are becoming increasingly linked in public perceptions and becoming a source of polarization in society.” In addition to stigmatizing migrants, such discourses could also be used to justify measures that infringe fundamental freedoms. Indeed, data exchange schemes like the PNR, could threaten the privacy of individuals, and increased border controls could be seen as a violation of the freedom of movement. In parallel, Bakker & de Roy van Zuijdewijn (2015, 16) argue that “the Muslim community (…) is perhaps the most important indirect victim of the activities of jihadist foreign fighters.” As a matter of fact, it was demonstrated in the previous chapter that the lexical choice of the word ‘jihadists’ to designate French ISIS departees could stigmatize Muslims by creating a correlation between Islamic practices and terrorism. Duffy (2018, 162) indeed observes that measures to mitigate the ISIS returnees phenomenon in the West have indeed had a strong impact on religious minorities and some ethnic groups. There are reasons to believe that turning one’s back on human rights, stigmatizing minorities and implementing measures that infringe people’s fundamental freedoms would normally not be accepted by the French public opinion. By constructing French ISIS returnees as a vital threat and through over-securitization, the French government incorporated these measures into a broader counter-terrorism narrative, which justified them and made them more acceptable for the audience. However, there also seems to be a discrepancy between what the French government argued in terms of human rights and personal freedoms and the reality that has been proven by various reports, research contributions and NGOs. This could be interpreted

62 as a lack of transparency that impacted the perception of the issue by the general public.

6.3) A Political Response To some extent, the French government’s response to the French ISIS returnees phenomenon can also be described as a short-term solution which fails to address the long-term implications of this issue and that served a political agenda.

The choice for securitizing actors to rely mainly on NON-REPATRIATION, for instance, can be explained by an inability for European governments to monitor all returnees constantly (Bakker, Paulussen and Entenman 2014, 18). To some extent, there seemed to be an eagerness from securitizing actors to not get too involved in the fate of these individuals depicted as enemies of France and potential terrorists. However, measures which make it difficult for ISIS departees to return might reduce their chances to disengage from violence one day, since they remain in an extremist environment (Leduc 2016). There is in fact a much higher chance for them to withdraw from their violent engagement if they are brought back to their home country. In the long-run, repatriating these individuals also reduces the chances for them to resume their terrorist activities. However, such measures can also be controversial and cause public discontent, as was the case in Denmark with the implementation of a model based on

REINTEGRATION (Merz 2017). The fact that these decisions are highly unpopular might explain why the repatriation schemes that do exist, like the Cazeneuve Protocol, were almost never referred to by the securitizing actors. The data also showed that whenever the return of some French ISIS departees was evoked, it was systematically connected to criminalizing measures. This does not consider the argument of scholars who emphasize the fact that, since these policies mainly target Muslim individuals, they “only serve to deepen the feelings of victimization that extremists seek to exploit” (Lister 2015, 12). Rather than preventing a threat,

NON-REPATRIATION and CRIMINALIZATION measures might in fact deepen social fractures and further the instability of the French society. On the other hand, these strategies could also be perceived as a way for the Macron administration to serve its political agenda. As shown in the analysis, the topic of ISIS returnees served to promote a common European defence strategy for which Emmanuel Macron pushed in reaction to deteriorating Transatlantic relations since the election of US President Donald Trump (Erlanger 2019). On a national level, complying with the expectations of the public opinion could be seen as a proof of the Macron administration’s right and security-based turn. As a matter of fact, since the 2018-19 yellow vest protests, the French government was depicted

63 several times as drifting toward the right-wing of the political landscape as it was of leading security-based policies. In the French context, the implementation of harsh and ‘better safe than sorry’ policies can also be interpreted as a consequence of the trauma left by several terrorist attacks that happened in the country in the 2010s. All in one, the securitization of French ISIS returnees seems to be embedded in a wider political agenda, as it relates to other issues. Securitizing actors seem to have attempted not to stigmatize minorities, although this was not necessarily successful. In parallel, the security- based approach adopted in this context can also be perceived as a way of appealing to a more conservative electorate than the one Emmanuel Macron was firstly targeting in his 2017.

6.4) A Manifestation of the “Culture of Fear”? This over-securitization of the French ISIS returnees phenomenon can also be seen as symptomatic of what the sociologist Frank Furedi (2006) calls the “culture of fear”. According to Furedi, fear has been taking an increasingly important place in Western societies since the beginning of the 21st century. He argues that “the free-floating dynamic of fear is promoted by a culture that communicates hesitancy and anxiety towards uncertainty and continually anticipates the worse possible outcome” (Furedi 2006, 8). The data revealed that the discourses of the French government regarding French ISIS returnees have been emphasizing the possibility for these individuals to perpetrate terrorist attacks in France, which is the worst-case scenario for the French public opinion. As such, one could argue that the official communications of the Macron administration fit the concept of the culture of fear. In addition, Furedi suggests that Western states have been relying on the “politics of fear” which rejects the idea of taking risks. For him, “[i]n the early twenty-first century, not daring has come to exercise a powerful influence on public policy and interpersonal relations. The act of daring is frequently associated with negative character traits” (Furedi 2006, 9-10). Applied to the context of French ISIS returnees, one could consider that the government did not dare to talk openly about DERADICALIZATION & DISENGAGEMENT or REINTEGRATION measures because they imply taking a risk by entrusting that these people could peacefully reintegrate society. By doing so, the discourses were probably meeting the expectations of a public opinion who was largely opposed to repatriation, as shown by surveys in 2018 and 2019 (Ifop 2018; Odoxa 2019). In addition, the risk that a returnee might perpetrate a terrorist attack after being reintegrated cannot be ignored. In the case of France, the aforementioned worst-case scenario did happen with the 2015 November attacks. It therefore seems understandable that the French

64 government wants to prevent such events from happening again. Nevertheless, this case of over- securitization may have contributed to an over-perception of the actual threat represented by the ISIS returnees phenomenon in the West. Furedi (2006, 24) argues that this “divergence between subjective perception and the actuality of danger constitutes one of the main subjects of discussion among specialists in the field of risks.” As such, one may argue that it is the states’ responsibility to seek to create more bridges between experts, researchers and the general public in order to mitigate this over-perception of the threat represented by ISIS returnees. To sum-up, the over-securitization of the phenomenon by the French government can be interpreted as a manifestation of a culture where risks where the possibility of the worst-case scenario happening influences policies.

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Conclusion

Answers to the Research Questions The first chapters of this study showed that the topic of EU ISIS returnees has gathered a lot of attention in academia but highlighted a gap in research when it came to the analysis of the discursive practices of the French government. Through the Post-Copenhagen securitization theory framework, it showed how discourses can justify the implementation of exceptional policies in order to protect a referent object that is existentially threatened. This research also allowed for a reflection on how security discourses can impact the general public’s acceptance of measures that could have been rejected in another context. To do so, it sought to understand how and why the discourses of the Macron administration participated in the securitization of French ISIS returnees between 2017 and 2020. This problem was broken down in four research sub-questions: - Q1. How have official governmental statements contributed to the securitization of French ISIS returnees? - Q2. To what extent are the discourses consistent with other securitizing acts, such as policy measures? - Q.3 Which factors on a national, European and global level could explain a change or a continuity in the discourses? - Q4. To what degree are the discourses linked to other public debates on topics such as immigration or Islam?

An in-depth CDA of the official discourses of the Macron administration between May 2017 and February 2020 allowed to answer these questions: - R1. The discourses have contributed to an over-securitization of the phenomenon of the French ISIS returnees. By constructing them as a threat and by reminding the audience of past events such as the November 2015 Paris Attacks, the securitizing actors may have led to an over-perception of the threat by the public opinion and instigated a climate of fear and defiance within the French society. Because of this over- securitization, securitizing moves seem to have been generally accepted, although they justified the implementation of measures that bargain with core EU and French values, namely human rights and the rule of law. - R2. The discourses reflected the main policies implemented by the French government:

NON-REPATRIATION and CRIMINALIZATION. In parallel, other measures such as repatriation

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schemes, DERADICALIZATION & DISENGAGEMENT or REINTEGRATION were seldomly mentioned, whereas they were de facto implemented. This could be interpreted as a lack of transparency from the French government, as well as a way of meeting the expectation of the general public who expressed its opposition to repatriating French ISIS departees. - R3. Functional actors have had an influence on the discourses. The USA’s and Turkey’s geopolitical moves have had a direct impact on the discourses and have pushed

the French government to consider other strategies, although NON-REPATRIATION was always prevailing. One could also argue that the growing influence of the far-right party Rassemblement National has pushed the Macron administration towards security-based policies in general, including when it came to tackling the ISIS returnees phenomenon. - R4. Other public debates were directly or indirectly connected to the discourses on French ISIS returnees. Through direct and indirect securitization, the topic of immigration was sometimes evocated to imply that some returnees might try and enter France through the backdoor and commit terrorist attacks. On the other hand, the terminology used by the securitizing actors, such as the word jihadist, might indirectly lead to the stigmatization of Muslims, or justify measures that specifically target this religious minority. Bridging such topics to the returnees phenomenon and in fine to a broader counter-terrorism narrative might increase the polarization of the French society. While this study was focusing on the specific case of France, this analysis can have several implications for governmental discursive practices when dealing with ISIS returnees in the EU in general. Over-securitizing this phenomenon can have dreadful consequences for human rights, but also lead to an over-perception of the potential threat they represent. In addition, instead of appeasing social tensions, discourses that tend to emphasize the level of threat create a climate of fear which may give way to increased polarization of society, leading to an escalation of hate and resentment. While the threat represented by some ISIS returnees does exist, it is the governments’ responsibility to find a balance between preventing the risk of terrorist attacks carried out by these individuals and giving citizens the chance to reintegrate their societies through DERADICALIZATION/DISENGAGEMENT and REINTEGRATION schemes. Governments also have a duty to ensure the respect of human rights and the rule of law – the recent statelessness of former UK citizen Shamima Begum revealed the dreadful consequences that measures such as deprivation of citizenship and in absentia trials can have on individuals’ fundamental rights. Ultimately, one may argue that:

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In order to face the risk to social cohesion within European societies, a shift in the way the public debate is framed is recommended. Communication is not merely a means to inform the general public about the measures taken and policies adopted, but is an instrument on its own to help counter polarisation in society. (van Ginkel et al. 2016, 67)

Limitations & Suggestions for further research While this study has allowed for a better understanding of the securitization process of the ISIS returnees phenomenon, its conclusions could be extended to other EU countries. However, in order to make this research a more valuable contribution to the field, several aspects should be investigated further. Firstly, the fact that this research focused solely on France does not allow for a broader understanding of EU States’ discursive practices on ISIS returnees. France has been particularly targeted by terrorist attacks and has seen the largest proportion of departees in the EU in the early 2010s. Similar research could be conducted to look at EU governments’ discourses and try and understand whether the tendencies observed in France are the same in other member states. It seems particularly relevant to look at countries such as Denmark, which put

REINTEGRATION at the core of their response, to try and understand how it justified this approach in official governmental discourses. In addition, as highlighted by the Post-Copenhagen school, the audience plays a key- role in the securitization process. Other than the two surveys organized in 2018 and 2019 (Ifop 2018; Odoxa 2019), little data is available concerning the French public opinion’s perceptions of the threat represented by French ISIS returnees. Because of this, one may only speculate on the possible effects of the discourses on public opinion but cannot draw definitive conclusions. Investigating threat perceptions could allow a for better understanding of the way counter- terrorism narratives are received by the audience and whether official governmental statements have an impact on the way people feel threatened or not. The role of cultural artefacts and the media play on the way people perceive the threat represented by radicalized individuals also deserves further attention. It is also relevant to note that the data for this research was collected on official governmental websites and did not include all the interventions or discourses produced by members of the government, especially in the media. For instance, Florence Parly’s statement (2017) where she argued that it was “better” if French ISIS departees perished during the Raqqa combats in October 2017 was not displayed there. Benjamin Griveaux’s interview where he expressed his preference for female departees to be tried in Kurdistan was not available on these websites either (Griveaux 2018). There are reasons to believe that the sources from which the 68 data was collected does not allow to understand the full picture and that this research could be elaborated on by looking at other types of sources, such as mass media. Finally, in 2020, the French government was reshuffled and Eric Dupont-Moretti was appointed Minister of Justice. Over the past three years, he showed his preference for repatriating and trying French ISIS departees in France, and reaffirmed this position after his appointment (Pecnard 2020). Thus, one could wonder whether he decided to fight the NON-

REPATRIATION strategy of the French government. On the other hand, it would also be interesting to compare the discourses of the Macron administration on ISIS returnees with those of the Hollande administration which preceded it. All in one, a larger and comparative conducted over a larger time frame could help to understand the evolution of France’s position regarding the ISIS returnees phenomenon.

Findings Implications ISIS’s territorial hegemony in Syria and Iraq is over. Yet, its impact on European societies will be long-lasting, largely due to the consequent number of people the terrorist organization managed to attract among its ranks. This polarizing issue has forced EU member states to take action to mitigate the potential risks ISIS returnees could pose for the safety of their country. The approach chosen by the Macron administration between 2017 and 2020 has been that of securitization. By constructing French ISIS returnees as a potential threat, the French government has justified exceptional measures on security grounds, which might have consequences for human rights and further the polarization of the French society. All in one, this study argued that the discourses of the Macron administration between 2017 and 2020 constitute a case of over-securitization, which does not reflect the “low-probability, high impact” threat that these individuals represent.

This study attempted to show that how States communicate on terrorism-related issues can have serious implications for individuals and societies. In France, by constantly highlighting the potential danger they represent, the Macron administration has participated in antagonizing French ISIS returnees. In practice, this seems to be reflected in the public opinion’s rejection of the idea of repatriating these individuals. Incorporating ISIS returnees into counter-terrorism narratives fails to address to complexity of the reality departees are experiencing and of their motivations to join terrorist organizations such as ISIS. Such discourses do not account for the fact that not all of them left because they hated their home country or wanted to fight. Rather than focusing solely on the security concerns prompted by

69 their return, EU governments could create new story-telling schemes, which rely on successful reintegration attempts, like it is the case in Denmark. This would also guarantee the respect of human rights and the rule of law, to which all EU member states have pledged their commitment. However, as suggested by Frank Furedi’s “culture of fear” theory, politicians are seldomly willing to take risks. This is all the more true in a country like France which experienced several deadly attacks over the last decades and where the counter-terrorism agenda is particularly emotionally-loaded. Rather than just representing an existential threat to the safety of their fellow citizens, reintegrated ISIS returnees could also become unique resources for intelligence services and counter-radicalization programs. Their testimonies explaining the factors that pushed and pulled them towards ISIS could help to understand the recruiting strategies of such organizations and prevent future departure waves. Irrespective of the crimes they committed, in a country where the rule of law prevails, ISIS returnees deserve a fair trial for the crimes they are suspected of having committed, like any other criminal. And like any other criminal, they should be given a chance to reintegrate their society. Ultimately, “security cannot be achieved at the expense of human rights” (Duffy 2018, 170).

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interview-de-mme-nicole-belloubet-garde-des-sceaux-ministre-de-la-just. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2018b. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, avec France Info le 24 octobre 2018, sur les perquisitions à La France Insoumise, les violences dans le milieu scolaire, la justice des mineurs, le retour en France des djihadistes, les agressions homophobes et sur les images aériennes des prisons françaises.” Vie Publique, October 24, 2018. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/206996-interview-de-mme-nicole-belloubet-garde- des-sceaux-ministre-de-la-just. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, N. 2019a. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à RTL le 31 janvier 2019, sur le retour en France de jihadistes français et sur les interdictions de manifester.” Vie Publique, January 31, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/269502- nicole-belloubet-31012019-terrorisme. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019b. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à France 2 le 18 février 2019, sur la Justice face à l'antisémitisme, aux violences au cours des manifestations des "Gilets jaunes" et au retour des djihadistes français.” Vie Publique February 18, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/270015-nicole-belloubet-18022019-justice- antisemitisme-gilets-jaunes. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019c. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à France Info le 20 février 2019, sur la lutte contre l'antisémitisme, l'affaire Benalla, les "Gilets jaunes", le retour des djihadistes et la réforme de la Justice.” Vie Publique, February 20, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/270058-nicole-belloubet-20022019- antisemitisme-reforme-de-la-justice-benalla. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019d. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à BFMTV le 27 février 2019, sur les jihadistes français, les "Gilets jaunes", les affaires Benalla et du hijab de Décathlon et sur la réforme de la justice des mineurs.” Vie Publique, February 27, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/269981-nicole-belloubet-27022019-jihadistes- gilets-jaunes-benalla-hijab. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019e. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à RMC le 6 mars 2019, sur l'attaque de surveillants de prison par un détenu radicalisé, les terroristes islamistes et le retour de jihadistes en France.” Vie Publique March 5, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/270272-nicole-belloubet-6032019-terrorisme-retour-de- jihadistes-en-france. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019f. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à RMC le 6 juin 2019, sur les relations avec les Etats-Unis, le jugement des djihadistes en Irak, les affaires judiciaires en France et sur la réforme constitutionnelle.” Vie Publique, June 6, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/270153-nicole-belloubet-06062019-politique- gouvernementale. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019g. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à France Info le 24 juillet 2019, sur la PMA, les “féminicides” et le jugement des djihadistes français en Irak.” Vie Publique, July 24, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/268462- nicole-belloubet-24072019-pma-violence-femme-terrorisme-france-irak. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019h. “Situation des djihadistes dans le nord-est de la Syrie - Q&R - Extrait du point de presse (23 septembre 2019).” Vie Publique, October 10, 2019. https://www.vie- publique.fr/discours/271087-nicole-belloubet-10102019-terrorisme. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019i. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à Sud Radio le 23 octobre 2019, sur le racisme, la retraite des avocats, le budget de la Justice, la délinquance des mineurs, les violences conjugales, les djihadistes et la protection des

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animaux..” Vie Publique, October 23, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/271406- nicole-belloubet-23102019-politique-judiciaire. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2019j. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à LCI le 15 novembre 2019, sur les violences sexuelles, les féminicides et le retour des djihadistes français.” Vie Publique, November 15, 2019. https://www.vie- publique.fr/discours/271928-nicole-belloubet-15112019-politique-judiciaire. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2020a. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à Public Sénat le 24 janvier 2020, sur les avocats et la réforme des retraites, l'affaire du meurtre de Sarah Halimi, la loi bioéthique et les djihadistes français.” Vie Publique, January 24, 2020. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/273087-nicole-belloubet-24012020-politique- gouvernementale. Accessed March 9, 2021. Belloubet, Nicole. 2020b. “Interview de Mme Nicole Belloubet, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice, à Radio Classique le 30 janvier 2020, sur la critique de la religion, l'antisémitisme, la retraite des avocats, les djihadistes et les municipales.” Vie Publique, January 30, 2020. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/273134-nicole-belloubet-30012020-politique- gouvernementale. Accessed March 9, 2021. Castaner, Christophe. 2019a. “Interview de M. Christophe Castaner, ministre de l'intérieur, à BFM TV le 29 janvier 2019 sur la sécurité routière, les blessés au cours des manifestations des "Gilets jaunes" et sur le retour en France de djihadistes français.” Vie Publique, January 29, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/269861-christophe-castaner-29012019-securite-routiere- manifestations. Accessed March 9, 2021. Castaner, Christophe. 2019b. “Déclaration de M. Christophe Castaner, ministre de l'intérieur, en réponse à une question sur le retour de djihadistes en France, à l'Assemblée nationale le 29 janvier 2019.” Vie Publique, January 29, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/269495-christophe- castaner-29012019-terrorisme. Accessed March 9, 2021. Castaner, Castaner. 2019c. “Interview de M. Christophe Castaner, ministre de l'intérieur, à France 2 le 1er mars 2019, sur les efforts en faveur des forces de l'ordre, la sécurité routière, les "Gilets jaunes" et sur le retour des jihadistes français.” Vie Publique, March 1, 2019. https://www.vie- publique.fr/discours/270218-christophe-castaner-01032019-securite-gilets-jaunes-terrorisme. Accessed March 9, 2021. Castaner, Christophe. 2019d. “Déclaration de M. Christophe Castaner, ministre de l'intérieur, en réponse à une question sur le retour de djihadistes en France, à l'Assemblée nationale le 12 novembre 2019.” Vie Publique, November 12, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/271845- christophe-castaner-12112019-terrorisme. Accessed March 9, 2021. Collomb, Gérard. 2017. “Interview de M. Gérard Collomb, ministre de l'intérieur, à CNews le 6 juillet 2017, sur la prorogation de l'état d'urgence, la situation des djihadistes français, le projet de loi renforçant la sécurité intérieure et la lutte contre le terrorisme, la coopération européenne face à la crise migratoire et la gestion des centres d'accueil. ” Vie Publique, July 6, 2017. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/203394-interview-de-m-gerard-collomb-ministre-de- linterieur-cnews-le-6-ju. Accessed March 9, 2021. Collomb, Gérard. 2018. “Interview de M. Gérard Collomb, ministre de l'intérieur, avec Europe 1 le 2 janvier 2018, sur l'agression contre des policiers à Champigny sur Marne, les voitures brûlées, la collectivité unique de Corse, la ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes et sur les djihadistes français." Vie Publique, January 2, 2018. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/204655- interview-de-m-gerard-collomb-ministre-de-linterieur-avec-europe-1-l. Accessed March 9, 2021. Darrieussecq, Geneviève. 2019. “Interview de Mme Geneviève Darrieussecq, secrétaire d'Etat auprès de la ministre des armées, à LCI le 14 août 2019, sur le débarquement de Provence en 1944, les

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relations franco-russes, le G7, les djihadistes français, Hong Kong et sur l’immigration.” Vie Publique, August 14, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/269509-genevieve- darrieussecq-14082019-politique-etrangere. Accessed March 9, 2021. Fesneau, Marc. 2019. “Interview de M. Marc Fesneau, ministre chargé des relations avec le Parlement, à LCI le 31 janvier 2019, sur le sort des Français djihadistes, le bilan de la sécurité routière, le projet de loi anticasseurs et le coût de la démocratie.” Vie Publique January 31, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/269934-marc-fesneau-31012019-francais-djihadiste- securite-routiere. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2017. “Interview de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, avec RTL le 15 décembre 2017, sur la reconnaissance par le président des Etats- Unis de Jérusalem comme capitale d'Israël, le nucléaire en Corée du Nord et en Iran, les djihadistes français et sur l'aéroport de Notre-Dame-des-Landes.” Vie Publique, December 15, 2017. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/204502-interview-de-m-jean-yves-le-drian- ministre-de-leurope-et-des-affaires. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2018a. "Interview de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, avec BFMTV le 7 février 2018, sur la loi prévoyant trois ans de prison pour les Polonais ou les étrangers accusant la Pologne de participation aux crimes nazis, l'offensive turque en Syrie, l'utilisation de l'arme chimique par le régime syrien, le règlement du conflit en Syrie, le jugement des djihadistes français et sur l'arme nucléaire en Corée du Nord." Vie Publique, February 2, 2018. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/204927-interview-de-m- jean-yves-le-drian-ministre-de-leurope-et-des-affaires. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2018b. "Interview de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, avec France Info le 17 avril 2018, sur l'intervention conjointe de la France, des Etats- Unis et du Royaume-Uni contre le régime syrien après l'emploi d'armes chimiques et sur l'avenir de la Syrie." Vie Publique, April 17, 2018. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/205553- interview-de-m-jean-yves-le-drian-ministre-de-leurope-et-des-affaires. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian 2018c. "Entretien de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, avec BFM TV le 19 avril 2018, sur l'intervention militaire contre le régime syrien après l'utilisation d'armes chimiques, les relations franco-américaines, l'accord relatif au nucléaire iranien et sur les djihadistes français condamnés en Irak." Vie Publique, April 19, 2018. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/205591-entretien-de-m-jean-yves-le-drian-ministre-de- leurope-et-des-affaires. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019a. “Déclaration de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, en réponse à une question sur le retour des djihadistes en France, à l'Assemblée nationale le 30 janvier 2019.” Vie Publique, January 30, 2019. https://www.vie- publique.fr/discours/269920-jean-yves-le-drian-30012019-retour-des-djihadistes-en-france. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019b. “Interview de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, à France Inter le 4 février 2019, sur le Venezuela, le retour de jihadistes français, le Brexit, les élections européennes et sur le Grand débat national.” Vie Publique, February 4, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/269538-jean-yves-le-drian-04022019-politique- etrangere. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019c. "Interview de M. Jean-Yves le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, à BFMTV le 22 mars 2019, sur le Brexit, les enfants de djihadistes, les élections européennes, le conseil de sécurité de l'ONU, l'Algérie et la Chine." Vie Publique, March 22, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/270931-interview-jean-yves-le-drian-22032019- politique-etrangere. Accessed March 9, 2021.

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Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019d. "Entretien de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, dans "Le Télégramme" du 1er avril 2019, sur les djihadistes français et leurs enfants en Syrie." Vie Publique, April 1, 2019. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/271517-jean-yves- le-drian-01042019-les-djihadistes-francais-et-leurs-enfants. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019e. “Politique étrangère - Libération des otages - Iran - Yémen Retour des Djihadistes - Entretien de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, avec "Le Parisien" - Extraits.” France Diplomatie, May 12, 2019. https://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/vues/Kiosque/FranceDiplomatie/kiosque.php?fichier=bafr2 019-05-13.html#Chapitre4. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019f. "Déclaration de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, en réponse à une question sur les procès en Irak contre le djihadistes, à l'Assemblée nationale le 29 mai 2019." Vie Publique, May 29, 2019. https://www.vie- publique.fr/discours/271659-jean-yves-le-drian-29052019-les-proces-en-irak-contre-le- djihadistes. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019h. "Syrie - Retour d'enfants mineurs français - Réponse de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères à une question au gouvernement à l'Assemblée nationale." France Diplomatie, June 11, 2019. https://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/vues/Kiosque/FranceDiplomatie/kiosque.php?fichier=bafr2 019-06-11.html#Chapitre9. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019i. "Politique étrangère - Brésil - Iran - Russie - Ukraine - Brexit - Tunisie - Libye - Algérie - Yémen - Arabie Saoudite - enfants de djihadistes en Syrie - Italie - Entretien de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, avec Europe 1, "le grand rendez-vous" - Extraits." France Diplomatie, September 8, 2019. https://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/vues/Kiosque/FranceDiplomatie/kiosque.php?fichier=bafr2 019-09-09.html#Chapitre5. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2019j. “Interview de M. Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, secrétaire d'Etat auprès du ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, à Public Sénat le 17 octobre 2019, sur le voile islamique, le Brexit, l'offensive turque en Syrie, les djihadistes, les relations avec les Etats-Unis et la Commission européenne.” France Diplomatie, October 17, 2019. https://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/vues/Kiosque/FranceDiplomatie/kiosque.php?fichier=bafr2 019-10-21.html#Chapitre3. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, J.-Y. 2019k. “Irak - Conférence de presse conjointe de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, et de M. Mohamed Ali Alhakim, ministre irakien des affaires étrangères - Propos de M. Le Drian. ” France Diplomatie, October 18, 2019. https://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/vues/Kiosque/FranceDiplomatie/kiosque.php?fichier=bafr2 019-10-21.html#Chapitre6. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2020a. “Déclaration de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, en réponse à une question sur le retour des djihadistes, à l'Assemblée nationale le 14 janvier 2020.” Vie Publique, January 14, 2020. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/272809- jean-yves-le-drian-14012020-terrorisme-retour-des-djihadistes. Accessed March 9, 2021. Le Drian, Jean-Yves. 2020b. “Politique étrangère - Coronavirus - Brexit - Lutte contre le terrorisme - Sahel - Iran - Syrie/djihadistes français - Libye/migrants - Israël/Territoires palestiniens - Algérie - Ambassadrice thématique - Entretien de M. Jean-Yves Le Drian, ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, avec "LCI-RTL Le Grand Jury" – Extraits.” France Diplomatie, February 2, 2020. https://basedoc.diplomatie.gouv.fr/vues/Kiosque/FranceDiplomatie/kiosque.php?fichier=baf r2020-02-03.html#Chapitre6. Accessed March 9, 2021. Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste. 2019a. “Extrait d'un entretien de M. Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, secrétaire d'Etat auprès du ministre de l'Europe et des affaires étrangères, à France Bleu Provence le 31

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