The terrorist threat on French territory is gradually increasing. Only four days after the attack on the Gambette high school in Arras, police officers from the Directorate General of Internal Security (DGSI) arrested a radicalised 16-year-old youth in the Seine-et-Marne department and took him into police custody. The minor, who was in contact with Romain T., an 18-year-old man of Chechen origin who was already in prison, had plans for a violent terrorist attack. According to information from the newspaper Le Parisien, the two individuals had planned an attack on people who, according to their own statements, had committed blasphemies against Islam. Romain T. allegedly came up with the idea for the plan after hearing a shopkeeper mention his religion in words he found offensive. The 18-year-old also wanted to attack people who were called “infidels”.
Romain T. was arrested this summer and charged with “criminal terrorist organisation” and remanded in custody in July. A source familiar with the case reports that this is a “very radicalised and very dangerous” criminal profile who has already been reported for making threats against teachers at his school for glorifying terrorism. The second suspect allegedly provided Romain T. with information in a social networking group that enabled him to identify a person who “spoke foully about Islam”. He was brought before an anti-terrorism judge on Friday October 20 to face charges. The youth is said to have already been remanded in custody.
According to a 2020 intelligence report by the DGSI, radicalised individuals from the Caucasian movement are now largely represented in the French jihad. “The radicalised members of this new generation are often very young and develop a jihadist dialectic that differs from that of their older fellow members,” it says.
