A main concern in France is the promotion of jihad propaganda via the Internet and social media, propaganda which is particularly targeted toward the European Chechen community.
In 2015, Europol published a report highlighting the serious threat from the Islamic State jihadist propaganda in the Russian language.
By that same year, most jihad groups in the North Caucasus region had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State; the Islamic State jihadis in the region were later designated the Islamic State – Caucasus Province (Vilayat Kavkaz). Between 20,000 to 40,000 people from the North Caucuses reportedly live in France. This is a massive number; it’s no secret that many leaders in the West have not kept a close watch on the immigration influx their own reckless open-door policies have enabled.
A General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) report says that the North Caucasus “represented a disproportionate number of those who left to join the Islamic State armed group in Syria starting in 2012.”
This came out of the Chechen independence movement, which shifted from being an opposition to Russian power “‘to a more universal dimension’ of global jihad.”
Meanwhile, Russia has distanced itself from the fatal stabbing of the French school teacher; this is unsurprising, given the attacker’s closeness to the Chechen leader that Putin installed. Recently, that same Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, released a video of his 14-year-old son beating an alleged Qur’an burner. Russia has remained silent on this. Kadyrov, who once sought the separation of Chechnya from Russia, ended up a close ally of Russia. While Putin has accepted a Sharia state operating in his own backyard, Europe gets targeted with jihad indoctrination and attacks.
Amid the charges of “Islamophobia” that are sure to come, France is now setting up a security system to include the surveillance of youth from the north Caucasus. France will also crack down on foreigners flagged for “radicalization.”
“France steps up plans to deal with Islamic radicalisation from the Caucasus,” by Sarah Elzas, Radio France Internationale, October 16, 2023:
Security services are also be being asked how step up surveillance of young people from the North Caucasus, who have been under scrutiny for over twenty years.
In a circular published earlier on Monday, the Interior Ministry tasked prefects – state representatives in France’s departments – to convene meetings of security and police forces as of Tuesday to scrutinise every person who has been flagged for radicalisation or association with potential terrorists, and move towards deporting those who are in France illegally.
The circular comes after President Emmanuel Macron called for security services to be “intractable” on deporting radicalised foreigners, following the stabbing death of teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras, by Mohammed Mogouchkov, a 20-year-old who arrived in France in 2008 with his family from the Muslim-majority Russian region of Ingushetia.
He is was one of the 20,120 people on France’s FSPRT list of people flagged for radicalisation and terrorism, according to Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin, who gave figures following a security meeting with the President on Monday.
Of those on the list, 1,411 are foreigners, and only 489 are still in France, most of whom are in detention or under house arrest, according to Interior Ministry.
Of the 193 illegal immigrants left, “we have decided to look at each one, case by case, to see who needs more effective surveillance… in order to accelerate the procedures and move towards their deportation,” said Darmanin.