![]() ![]() ![]() First, the repatriation was “mainly related to the deterioration of the security situation in the region”. Jean-Charles Brisard, president of the French Centre for the Analysis of Terrorism points to several recent developments. Government officials hinted that Paris would start moving on the repatriation question once the recent presidential elections were over – a clear prioritisation of politics over humanitarian, legal and security considerations.īut other considerations have helped to push France’s latest decision. Terrorism remains a politicised topic in France. Repatriations are not easily marketed as a political win and France has been traumatised from multiple deadly terrorist attacks in the past decade. Still, France has grimly held its position. ![]() The pressure mounted in February when the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child found that “France’s failure to repatriate French children.in life-threatening conditions for years violates their right to life, as well as their right to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment”. Last year, a French woman detained in a Syrian camp died from health complications from severe diabetes, leaving behind her 6-year-old daughter. Prosecuting French female returnees requires less evidence and leads to longer sentences, compared to other European countries In 2021, two families brought France before the European Court of Human Rights, alleging that “the refusal to repatriate their daughters and grandchildren expose them to inhuman and degrading treatment”. ![]() Germany has brought back 22 women and 69 children and the Netherlands has started repatriating women to stand trial.įrance has not only become increasingly isolated among its European partners, but has faced mounting pressure from its citizens at home. As human rights organisations began condemning the gruesome conditions of “Europe’s Guantanamo”, more and more European countries started repatriating: Belgium is repatriating minors below 12. France has largely opted over the years to shy away from its responsibilities and has argued that ISIS affiliates should be tried in the region – aware that this was no feasible legal solution. But tracing the developments that led to this change helps to explain why this could also be little more than damage control.Ĭonfronted with the dilemma of what to do with ISIS affiliates detained in Syria, countries adopt different approaches, ranging from citizenship stripping in the UK to actively repatriating citizens, as in the case of Kosovo. Several hundreds French citizens or residents – 67 men, 75 women and 250 minors – remain in Kurdish camps and prisons.Ī volunteer at the camp in Ain Issa looking after orphaned children reportedly linked with foreign ISIS fighters. AFPįrance having now doubled the number of repatriated children with this latest group, and having brought back mothers, too, may point to a positive shift in policy France and its European partners should also bring back the remainder of their citizens from Syria. Now, despite appalling living conditions, diseases, deaths, and scolding by international organisations, Kurds, the US and detainees’ families, France had, until July, only brought back 35 children, and did so on a case-by-case basis. Since the military defeat of the so-called “caliphate” in 2019, several thousand foreigners with affiliation to ISIS have been detained in Kurdish camps and prisons in northeast Syria. Around 20 per cent of them have been women. In the past 10 years, almost 2,000 people have left France to join terrorist organisations like ISIS. While bringing people affiliated with ISIS back to French soil might seem incredibly risky at best and naive at worst, repatriation is still the most effective solution to the foreign fighter dilemma. After three years of obstacles and indecision, France has finally decided to repatriate some of its citizens. Now, they returned as single mothers, coming from detention camps in northeast Syria. When the women left France, years ago, they were travelling to what was then ISIS-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria. At dawn on July 5, a group of 16 women and 35 children landed in Paris. ![]()
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