Magali Laurent has no news of her daughter, abducted by her father and taken to Syria since 2017. -

Isabelle Harsin / SIPA for 20 Minutes

  • In her book 

    Reviens, Lila,

    published Wednesday, February 3, Magali Laurent tells the story of the five years since the kidnapping of her daughter by her father, who left to wage jihad in Syria.

  • "Asphyxiated by guilt" and "shame", she deplores the cruel gaze cast by society on these families hit hard by terrorism.

  • Without news from Lila since 2017, the young woman keeps the hope of finding her one day anchored in her.

Five years after the kidnapping of her daughter, Magali Laurent keeps this "tiny hope".

The hope of finding, one day, the one who was brutally taken from her one evening in October 2015. Lila was not four years old when she was taken to Syria by her father, where he went to wage jihad within of the terrorist organization Daesh.

“Destroyed” but still combative, Magali Laurent recounts these long years of absence in a book entitled

Reviens, Lila

*, co-written with journalist Françoise-Marie Santucci and published on Wednesday 3 February.

Without news of her daughter since 2017, the forty-something who receives us in her Parisian apartment wanted to send her testimony directly to her daughter.

“I wanted her to have access to my truth,” she explains.

Without make-up, she also expresses her guilt, her shame and the weight of the gaze of our society which still places the responsibility of terrorists on those who have shared their lives.

When and how was Lila abducted?

She was kidnapped on October 27, 2015 by her father who had custody for the All Saints holidays.

He made me believe that he was leaving Tunisia with her to visit his family.

We were divorced and he had already gone there with Lila for the holidays.

Everything had always gone well, so I trusted him.

After their departure, we continued to talk, he gave me news of Lila by e-mail and on Skype.

He told me that they had arrived safely, that Lila was having fun.

He was sending me pictures but couldn't see it on video calls which we usually did. 

I got impatient, told her I missed her, asked her if I could see her.

He offered to call me the next day but he didn't connect.

He explained to me that he had had a problem with the phone - which happened to him a lot - so I didn't worry.

The day of their supposed return to France, you receive a call ...

My ex-husband's sister called me telling me that she had just gotten him on Skype, that he was in Turkey.

He had told her that he was not coming back and that she could empty her apartment.

Everything collapsed.

At the time I shouted: "It's not possible, it's possible", and, on the way to the police station, the puzzle came together: I understood that he had not gone to Turkey. with my daughter for sightseeing.

It was a one-way ticket.

Magali Laurent has not heard from her daughter since 2017 but continues her fight to find her.

- I.Harsin / SIPA for 20 Minutes

In your story, you dissect the lies and cover-ups of Lila's father.

At the material time, what was his relationship to religion?

In 2014, he got fired and we broke up shortly after.

He took refuge in religion.

But a few months before Lila's kidnapping, he changed.

He told me he wanted and had to find work.

He shaved his beard, he told me he was going to "get his act together".

I was happy for him, and for Lila.

I trusted it was my daughter's father.

He told me that he had almost found a job, he asked me to print his resumes.

Three weeks before taking it off, he bought Lila a bicycle.

But I realized afterwards that it was concealment, that he had put me to sleep for months to gain my trust until the end.

When you realize that your daughter is on the Turkish-Syrian border, you immediately jump into action.

But you are quickly confronted with administrative and legal difficulties ...

There is no manual for this kind of situation.

I was looking for what I could do on the internet, but I didn't know who to turn to, who to contact.

I informed the police, who took my complaint very seriously and escalated it to the criminal squad as a priority.

I called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who directed me to the Union Law Office, but I was in a legal slump and felt powerless.

The problem, initially, is that my ex-husband had custody for the holidays, so he was in his "right".

I lost a week because of it because the justice could not follow.

The other difficulty is that he had left the territory.

But I was quickly helped by my lawyer, Franck Berton, who organized a press conference to alert the public authorities.

After that, my complaint was escalated to the level of the anti-terrorism services.

Then, for three months, I had no contact with my daughter.

When his father contacted me again, the ax fell.

He had crossed the border.

I said to myself "It's too late".

We never managed to get his exact location afterwards, I knew he was in Raqqa, but that was not enough.

You devote a chapter to the intimate explosion caused by the attacks of November 13, which occurred a few days after the kidnapping.

How did you experience this event?

I had the feeling of being touched because I had a common problem with the victims.

If our wounds are obviously different, the people who destroyed me and who destroyed all these families that evening are the same terrorists, share the same ideology, the same objective.

However, you point to the fact of never having been considered a "real" victim of terrorism.

How do you explain it?

It took me a while to realize that I was a victim too.

I was in guilt and shame, it suffocated me and it rotted my life, it continues to suffocate me.

For me, the victim was Lila, and I felt that I couldn't prevent that.

I even concealed what his father had done.

I carried all the responsibility, I kept telling myself that I had lacked discernment.

In the collective unconscious, it seems weird that a mother or an ex-wife did not "see" what was happening.

But when someone doesn't want to show anything, he knows how to cover up.

Public opinion confuses the relatives of people who have gone to Syria and these people.

We should have seen, we should have alerted, so we can't be a victim.

It is the double penalty.

Lila was three and a half years old when she was kidnapped by her father and taken to Syria.

- I.Harsin / SIPA for 20 Minutes

For several months, you still manage to maintain a bond with your daughter, under the permanent control of her father.

What do you see during these exchanges?

I could see her on Skype until July 2016. After that date, he stopped showing me Lila.

He did everything to erase me from his memory.

From the first video exchanges, my daughter appeared veiled.

She stumbled over certain French words when she was very advanced in the language for a 3 and a half year old girl.

In our exchanges, to address me, he alternated and said "Magali" and "mother".

Lila did the same afterwards.

And when he addressed my daughter, he no longer called her by her first name but called her "Fatima".

At the end of our discussions, she spoke only Arabic, it was her father who did the translation.

For me, it was psychological torture.

Seeing her overwhelmed me with emotion, and it was absolute pain.

During the discussions, your daughter sometimes asks you: "Why don't you come, mom?

»Was an on-site intervention possible?

The anti-terrorism services have always strongly advised me against going there.

They said to me: “We cannot forbid you, but the outcome will be dramatic.

I tried to negotiate a meeting with him at the Turkish border, but he categorically refused.

I asked myself the question of going alone.

But I had no exact location, no contact, no guarantee of actually finding her.

He kept telling me: "You have a choice.

You come or you do not come ”, and put the pressure on me by telling me:“ I am going to fight, the longer you delay coming, the more chances I have of dying and your daughter you will not see her again ”.

But coming alone was doomed to failure and I didn't have the courage to go, it was my limit.

I have to live with it now.

Where are the research and legal proceedings?

Investigations are still ongoing.

We know that he remarried on the spot but we have no information on his wife.

Concerning him, I have no illusions.

He hasn't given any news since 2017 and we know that this corresponds to a period of intense fighting there.

The question I'm asking myself today is: Did Lila and the woman he remarried get away?

Are they still in Syria?

In refugee camps?

I do not know.

This uncertainty is torture, I will never be at peace.

However, I have this tiny hope.

I have to keep fighting, I can't leave her.

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* Reviens, Lila

, by Magali Laurent and Françoise-Marie Santucci, Grasset, 224 pages, 18 euros.

  • Child

  • Society

  • Daesh

  • Terrorist attacks in Paris

  • Jihadism

  • Syria

  • Terrorism