Efforts to de-radicalise Islamists have been a disaster, says report

FRANCE: France’s efforts to turn radical Islamists into upstanding citizens have been denounced as an amateurish fiasco by a parliamentary report.

President Francois Hollande’s plan to de-radicalise thousands of French Muslims has flopped while wasting millions of euros of taxpayers’ money, concludes the report, released yesterday. Its revelations include:

The only one of 13 promised deradicalisation centres to have opened is fully staffed but empty.

Local associations designed to counsel families do not know what they are doing, and many signed up just to obtain public funding.

A re-education programme for radicalised inmates was scrapped after one prisoner duped the authorities into believing that he had reformed, before organising an attack on guards. The report, by a senate committee, was commissioned to examine Hollande’s response to the spate of terrorist attacks that have killed 238 people in France since January 2015.

The government outlined a wide-ranging programme aimed at identifying people interested in radical Islam before they joined terrorist networks, and to turn them away from violence by instilling in them democratic and humanitarian values.

The Socialist government estimated that 15,000 people in France were followers of radical Islam; a further 680, including about 275 women, are thought to have joined jihadist movements in Iraq and Syria. Intelligence agencies are concerned that with Islamic State in retreat, many will return wanting to attack France.

The report, written by senators Esther Benbassa, of the leftist Ecology party, and Catherine Troendle, from the centre-Right Republicans, concludes that the programme has been a resounding failure.

In a damning indictment of the government’s approach, they said it was impossible to make a lawabiding citizen of a radical Islamist.

‘‘We just have to admit that the most violent and dangerous people will not be [de-radicalised],’’ Troendle said.

Benbassa added: ‘‘Deradicalisation does not exist. They thought they could take someone and wash their brains. In fact, brainwashing doesn’t really work, and it’s a dangerous myth.

‘‘It’s understandable that the government wanted to reassure society after the terror attacks. But it started with a false premise.’’

The centrepiece of the government programme was the creation of 13 ‘‘de-radicalisation’’ centres, the first of which opened in Pontourny in the Loire Valley last September.

It was supposed to house 25 radicals who had volunteered for a short, sharp shock treatment to wean them off Islamism. This involved a 6.45am wake-up call, singing the national anthem, studying philosophy and religious education.

Although locals were told that there would be no dangerous terrorists in Pontourny, one participant turned out to be on an intelligence agency watchlist, while a second was caught in eastern France trying to leave for Syria.

Amid uproar in the picturesque vineyards of the Loire Valley, the centre was discreetly emptied last month, the report revealed. It now has 27 employees - who include five psychologists and nine teachers - an annual budget of €2.5 million and ‘‘no-one at all’’ housed there, the report said.

The report was equally critical of a policy of funding small associations tasked with dissuading youngsters from becoming interested in radical Islam.

One ‘‘de-radicalisation cell’’ in a northern Paris suburb spent €22,000 of its €35,000 grant to rent a 150-square-metre flat with a terrace overlooking the street.

Julien Reviel, who joined the team, said he spent more time speaking with journalists than with families worried about their children.

Benbassa said the government had displayed ‘‘quite a lot of amateurism, with people making it up as they went along’’.

‘‘They really panicked ... but I think any government would have done the same in that situation.’’

The de-radicalisation policy in jails has also been a flop, according to the report.

Last year, radical Islamist inmates were brought together in five high-security wings of prisons in the Paris region and northern France. The idea was to offer them lessons in geopolitics, English, French grammar and sport as well as 12 hours a week of psychology sessions.

However, the policy was scrapped when an inmate attacked two guards. - The Times