France: The long shadow of the Saint-Michel terrorist attacks

July 24, 2020

The bomb went off in the heart of Paris at 5:30 p.m., the height of the post-workday rush hour. A giant fireball raced down the platform of the Saint-Michel – Notre-Dame metro station. A gas container filled with shrapnel had exploded in a train car on the regional RER B line. The explosion killed eight people and injured more than 100, some of them critically.

As Prime Minister Alain Juppe and President Jacques Chirac rushed to the scene shortly thereafter, they had no way of knowing that July 25, 1995, would mark just the first in the series of nationwide terror attacks.

Investigators were aware from early on that the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a radical Islamic organization, was behind the terrorist act. With the bombing, the group had managed to bring the ongoing civil war in Algeria, a fight between Islamists and the military, to the country’s former colonial ruler.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

December 11, 2018: Strasbourg shooting

A gunman opened fire at a Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg, home to the European Parliament. At least two people were killed and 12 injured. Prosecutors opened a terror investigation. France immediately raised its national security alert to its highest level in anticipation of copycat attacks.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

May 12, 2018: Paris knife attack

A man wielding a knife attacks bystanders in a central neighborhood in Paris, killing one person and wounding another four. French prosecutors open a terror probe into the attack, citing witness accounts that the assailant shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is greatest”). The militant “Islamic State” (IS) group claims responsibility for the attack, calling the knifeman one of their “soldiers.”

Terror attacks in France since 2015

March 23, 2018: Trebes hostage crisis

An attacker claiming allegiance to IS perpetrates a string of violent crimes in the southern town of Trebes during the morning hours. He kills a man while stealing a car and then fires shots at police officers before entering a Super U grocery store, where he takes hostages. Police shoot dead the attacker. Four people are killed, including including policeman Arnaud Beltrame.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

October 1, 2017: Marseille train station knife attack

A man fatally stabs two women at the Marseille train station. The perpetrator, Ahmed Hanachi, is shot dead by police on patrol. IS claims responsibility for the attack in a post by its news agency Amaq. In it, they call Hanachi one of the group’s “soldiers.” Two Interior Ministry officials resign after it is revealed that Hanachi was an undocumented immigrant who they had failed to detain.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

April 20, 2017: Champs-Elysees police shooting

A gunman opens fire on police on the Champs-Elysees, Paris’ most iconic boulevard. One police officer is killed and two individuals are injured before police shoot the gunman dead. A note praising IS is found next to the gunman’s body. The terrorist group also claims responsibility. The attack occurs just days before the first round of the French presidential election. Security is tightened.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

February 3, 2017: Machete attempt at Louvre

Soldiers shoot and severely injure a knife-wielding man outside the Louvre museum in Paris after he assails them. One soldier is lightly injured. The attacker had two further machetes in his backpack. A subsequent investigation reveals the Egyptian national had traveled to France from Dubai on a valid tourist visa. A Twitter account associated with the man’s name refers to IS in posts.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

July 26, 2016: Murder of Normandy priest

Two teens enter a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy and slit the throat of an 85-year-old priest in front of five parishioners. Police shoot the 19-year-olds dead as they try to leave. IS takes responsibility and publishes a video of the teens pledging allegiance to the group. Many French Muslims attend the next Sunday’s Mass to show solidarity with Catholics and condemn the attack.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

July 14, 2016: Truck attack in Nice

On Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, a truck drives through crowds in Nice that had gathered to watch the fireworks on a major seaside promenade. Before being shot dead by police, the driver kills 86 and injuries more than 400 others. IS claims responsibility, stating that the attacker had responded to IS calls to target civilians living in coalition nations fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

November 13, 2015: Paris attacks

France’s most deadly terror attack: IS jihadis armed with automatic weapons and explosives undertake coordinated attacks in Paris including at the Bataclan concert hall, the national stadium and various street cafes. The mass shootings and suicide bombings kill 130 people, injuring hundreds more. IS claims responsibility. Then-President Francois Hollande calls it an act of war by IS.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

August 21, 2015: Thalys train tragedy averted

A deadly attack is averted: On a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris, a man opens fire with an assault rifle that subsequently jams. Other train passengers tackle the man, preventing deadly violence. Four are injured including the attacker. The assailant had been known to French security officials for past drug-related activities and statements in defense of radical Islamist violence.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

June 26, 2015: Beheading, truck explosion near Lyon

Yassin Salhi beheads his boss and displays the head, along with two Islamic flags, on the gate outside a gas plant near Lyon. He also tries to blow up the factory by driving his van into the gas cylinders. The attempt fails, but unleashes a smaller explosion, injuring two. French authorities claim links between the man and IS. He commits suicide in prison.

Terror attacks in France since 2015

January 7-9, 2015: Charlie Hebdo, Jewish supermarket attack

Two men with automatic guns storm the offices of satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 and wounding 12 others. A different gunman kills a police officer the next day, then four more during a hostage-taking on January 9 at a kosher grocery. Police eventually shoot all three gunmen dead, but not before they claim allegiance to IS and al-Qaida.

Author: Cristina Burack

France mobilizes all its forces

The French government subsequently mobilized its entire security apparatus. From that point onward, thousands of police, soldiers and customs officers closely monitored critical hubs such as train stations and airports. Paris city officials had thousands of trash cans welded shut — or removed entirely.

A few weeks later, following a massive manhunt, police managed to capture the individuals behind the attack — all of whom were Algerian-born. The men had recruited Khaled Kelkal, who planted the bomb, from Lyon’s banlieue — a socially disadvantaged housing project similar to those in other major cities across the country.

Khaled Kelkal immigrated from Algeria to France at the age of two with his family and attended school in eastern Lyon. He likely became radicalized while serving time in prison. He was 24 at the time of the attack.

Kelkal was shot and killed near Lyon when police attempted to arrest him. The other members of the terror cell were convicted and given life sentences by French courts in the 2000s.

Kelkal’s story brought the banlieues back into public focus in France. The first documented unrest in the disadvantaged outlying urban areas had taken place in summer 1981 — after the Saint-Michel attack, the banlieues started to be seen as a possible breeding ground for terrorism.

A direct line from Saint-Michel to Charlie Hebdo

On January 7, 2015, 20 years after the 1995 Saint-Michel attacks, the world saw firsthand just how serious France’s problem with homegrown terrorism remained. On that day, two terrorists attacked the editorial offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and then fled, killing a total of 12 individuals. Like the Saint-Michel perpetrators, the two attackers, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, had Algerians roots — however, they were not immigrants but rather French-born.

One day after the Charlie Hebdo attack, Amedy Coulibaly, a young Frenchman of Malian descent — and a friend of the Kouachis — continued the wave of terror by shooting a police officer and taking multiple people hostage in a kosher supermarket in Paris. Coulibaly, 32, grew up in one of the most well-known Paris banlieues, La Grande Borne.

Read more: Emmanuel Macron leaves France’s suburbs in the lurch

Coulibaly and Cherif Kouachi had been investigated by French police in 2010 for attempting to free Saint-Michel attacker Smain Ait Ali Belkacem from prison. In 2015, French authorities had no doubt: The perpetrators of the 1995 attack had helped radicalize a second and third generation of Islamists in France, both through networks and direct contact.

The burden of a colonial past

But where does the hate for the former colonial ruler come from?

Stefan Seidendorf, of the German-French Institute in Ludwigsburg (dfi), sees the past as the key to answering this question. Unlike other colonies, Algeria was closely connected to France and was the only colony to be incorporated into mainland France and even divided into departements, the administrative regions used across France.

The free travel and exchange that had naturally arisen between “France on both Mediterranean coasts” came to an end in 1962 with Algerian independence. Individuals of Algerian heritage who then wanted to remain in Europe had to put down permanent roots, far away from their country of origin.

It is possible to speak broadly of France’s successful history of immigration, Seidendorf says, but many third or fourth-generation French citizens of Algerian heritage who speak only poor Arabic, if any at all, continue to struggle with life in France.

“Many in this generation actually haven’t been successful in securing the more interesting jobs in the labor market or enjoying the fulfilment of the Republic’s promise of social advancement: The promise that things will be better for them than for their (immigrant) parents, that upward mobility can be achieved through education, regardless of heritage or material conditions, and that one can become part of the French Republic that way. This discrepancy between the promise and the reality is a large part of the problem,” the expert says.

What happened to the attackers?

Politics has so far been largely ineffective in solving the problem of integration. Despite governments of all different political leanings enacting numerous education and infrastructure programs for the banlieuessince the 1980s, the long-term economic prospects for inhabitants has not yet improved. Then there is also the desolate security situation. Most recently, protests during the coronavirus lockdown led to violent riots in these low-income housing projects.

Meanwhile, the masterminds of the 1995 attack remain in prison. Two months ago, a lawyer for Boulaem Bensad, who has spent 25 years behind bars, filed a request to have his client released and deported to Algeria. The courts have not yet made a decision, but observers except that the now 52-year-old man and other former members of the terror cell will remain in French prisons for years to come.

France’s new anti-terror law explained

Restriction of movement

People with links to terrorist organizations can be forbidden from leaving their town or city of residence and required to report to police. They can also be banned from specified places. This is a toning down of the emergency law, which allowed partial house arrest. Its provisions were used not just against suspected terrorists, but also to ban suspected radical leftists from demonstrations.

France’s new anti-terror law explained

House searches

Authorities will be able to carry out searches of homes, but only to prevent acts of terrorism. In contrast to the emergency powers, searches must first be approved by a judge. Of the 3,600 house searches carried out in the seven months after the state of emergency came into effect, only six resulted in terrorism-related criminal proceedings, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

France’s new anti-terror law explained

Closing places of worship

Authorities retain the power to close places of worship where extremist ideas are propagated, including promoting hatred or discrimination, as well as inciting violence or supporting acts of terrorism. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, has complained the law did not go far enough in combating the “Islamist ideology that is waging war on us.”

France’s new anti-terror law explained

Identity checks around ports and airports

Security forces can check the identity of people within a 10-kilometre radius of ports and international airports. The government’s original draft bill proposed a 20-kilometre radius. Le Monde calculated this would have covered 67 per cent of the French population, including 36 of the country’s largest 39 cities. Unlike the other powers, this one will not expire automatically in 2020.

France’s new anti-terror law explained

Security perimeters around events

This continues emergency powers under which security forces can search property and frisk persons at and near major public events that could be targeted by terrorists. Other provisions include a civil servant working in an area related to security or defence can be transferred or dismissed if he or she is found to hold radical opinions. Soldiers can also be discharged for similar motives.

Author: Jo Harper