French Police Officer Fired for Islamic Radicalization Reinstated Due to Legal Technicality

At 35, the police officer, converted to Islam, was dismissed from the police for his proselytism within the Villeneuve-la-Garenne police station itself, reports Le Parisien. Several testimonies collected by the IGPN reveal that the police officer had urged security assistants to pray and attend the mosque. The police officer is said to have convinced one of them to convert in turn and had adopted a different behavior with women, refusing to have contact with them.

He was also accused of being acquainted with a close associate of the terrorist who had attacked Sentinelle military personnel in August 2017 in Levallois-Perret, to whom he had also lent his weapon and armband so that he could have his picture taken. Worse, the police officer is said to have crossed paths with the Levallois terrorist twice.

Considering that he had been unfairly dismissed, the police officer had referred the matter to the administrative court on an urgent basis. On Thursday, the administrative court of Cergy-Pontoise annulled the dismissal order taken by the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, on September 6, 2018. The procedure that led to his dismissal did not comply with the formalities.

According to the latest news, the police officer should therefore be able to definitively reintegrate his position, this time at the Gennevilliers police station where he had been assigned a few months ago, after being dismissed. This sanction had been taken after the attack at the Paris police headquarters on October 3.