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For Jean-Yves Le Drian, it is not possible in the short term to request an Iraqi judicial process for French jihadists. REUTERS / Shamil Zhumatov

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian acknowledged this on Sunday: it is difficult to organize a trial in Iraq for the French jihadists detained by the Kurds in Syria. France still does not plan to repatriate its nationals detained in Syria after having fought in the ranks of the Islamic State group.

More than 10,000 jihadists are currently detained by the Kurds in the territories they control in Syria.

Most are Syrian or Iraqi fighters from the Islamic State group, but there are also foreign jihadists, including 60 French, as well as women and children.

This Sunday, the chief of diplomacy Jean-Yves Le Drian reaffirmed the French position: “ The combatants and combatants of French nationality must be judged where they committed their crimes. "

For this, Paris had hoped for a moment that trials could take place in Iraq, the Minister of Foreign Affairs had even visited Baghdad in October to discuss it with the Iraqi authorities who had freshly welcomed the French idea.

Since then, the situation in Iraq has greatly deteriorated, with a protest movement and repression that has left hundreds of people dead.

For Jean-Yves Le Drian, it is therefore not possible in the short term to request an Iraqi legal process for French jihadists.

The Minister therefore returns this sensitive issue to the most uncertain horizon: that of a hypothetical political settlement in Syria.