Radicalizing Law to Deradicalize Society: The French Legislative Arsenal of Deradicalization and the Threat to Human Rights

Abstract

Few frameworks have had an as profound and rapid influence on a branch of legislation as (de)radicalization in France. While the country had an established and even decades-long record of developing mechanisms of counterterrorism and intelligence against violent extremism, the field of (de)radicalization is comparatively recent. Its novelty however, only highlights the depth of its impact. Indeed, in comparison to other countries dealing with similar threats, such as the United States or the United Kingdom, French legislators resisted developing comprehensive, non-security-based reforms addressing political violence until 2013. Triggered initially by a series of highly mediatized and politicized shootings in 2012 targeting French soldiers and a Jewish school comitted by a jihadist radical Mohammed Merrah, the jihadist attacks in January and November 2015 gave new urgency to the elaboration of a comprehensive and far-reaching legislative response to radicalisation. The symbolic and political impact of these events provoked a veritable legislative revolution in treating extremist political violence. Since then, France has elaborated an extensive arsenal of counterterrorist efforts and expanded the scope and variety of its deradicalisation measures, directing them, almost exclusively, against jihadist violence and radicalisation...