France Weighs Repatriation of ISIS Fighters Amid Security Concerns

"We cannot take the risk of a dispersion in nature [of French jihadists. We won’t have fifty solutions: either we will repatriate them because we consider it better for them to be under French control, or they will evaporate... With the risks that this entails," Nicole Belloubet said in an interview with Libération. According to her, there is no other solution than to repatriate these French jihadists to France and prosecute them.

This opinion of the Keeper of the Seals is diversely appreciated. On the one hand, those who share it, and on the other, those who reject it. "What Ms. Belloubet says about the risk of dispersion [of jihadists] is true," supported Marc Lopez, a member of the Familles unies collective, which advocates the repatriation of jihadists to be tried in France and their children. Especially since "since August, no family has had news of the men imprisoned in Syria."

For Marie Dosé, lawyer for families of children and mothers detained in Syria, "the Keeper of the Seals is finally appealing to responsibility and reason and it was time" because, it has been more than two years that she has been waiting for this reaction from the government.

Conversely, the entourage of the Minister of Justice opposes her proposal. "Our position is constant. We believe that jihadists should be tried in the places where they committed their misdeeds. This is why we support, with other European states, the principle of their trial in Iraq with all the guarantees that are required," said a close source who confided in AFP.