It's time to return home for around 300 French minors who have stayed mainly in Syria and Iraq.

“France welcomes 225 minors who have stayed in areas of operation of terrorist groups”, declared Éric Dupond-Moretti during a hearing before the Senate on “returnees of jihad”.

He specified that 217 of them had stayed in the Iraqi-Syrian zone and the other eight in other conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen.

These children mostly returned with their parents, either because they were expelled to France, particularly from Turkey, or because they returned to France spontaneously, he explained.

“In addition, 77 minors were repatriated by the French authorities, including 71 from the Rojava camps in seven operations, between March 15, 2019 and October 4, 2022, and six others from Iraq,” he said. added.

Placement in child welfare and systematic ban on leaving the territory

On Monday, a woman and her two children held in the Roj camp were repatriated to France, three months after 35 minors and 16 women had already been.

“Other operations may follow when the families volunteer to return,” assured the Minister, while emphasizing that these operations posed security problems for those who carried them out.

“To organize these return operations, when possible, it is always complicated, very complex, very difficult,” he explained.



Eric Dupond-Moretti explained that all minors were subject to judicial care which combined placement in child welfare and an educational measure in an open environment, with a systematic ban on leaving the territory. .

"These are often very young children: two-thirds are under 10 years old," he said, adding that 22 of these children were orphans and that 77 of them were born in the area and do not knew "nothing about France".

The Minister specified that 11 of these minors, who have since become adults, were the subject of an indictment for association with terrorist criminals.

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