What future for French women repatriated from Syria?

• On Tuesday July 5, 16 women and 35 minors were repatriated to France by the authorities from jihadist prison camps located in northeastern Syria.

• Eight of the women, subject to a search warrant, and eight concerned by an arrest warrant, were then indicted for criminal terrorist association and placed in pre-trial detention.

• Pending their passage before the specially composed assize court, the 16 women will be assessed to determine if they are still radicalized or if they have broken with the doctrine of the Islamic State (IS) group.

They are between 22 and 39 years old, are all French or have French children, and have all been placed in pre-trial detention.

Repatriated from prison camps located in northeastern Syria on Tuesday, July 5, these 16 women were all indicted for criminal terrorist association, some immediately, others a few days later.

With them, 35 minors were also rescued from the extreme conditions of these camps where the temperature reaches 50°C in tents in summer.

In the specialized quarters of remand prisons

The French authorities are grounded.

If this large repatriation is unprecedented in France, several have returned on their own since 2013. Dozens of women and men have experienced this judicial journey.

And the system has improved to accommodate these atypical profiles.

Radicalization assessment quarters (QER) have developed, as have radicalization treatment quarters (QPR), as in Rennes, a prison for female prisoners which can accommodate up to 16 people at the moment. , and up to 29 cells at term, according to

.

Some of the sixteen women who were repatriated at the beginning of July are already there, and will go elsewhere later.

They live in individual cells of 11 m² with a bed, a shower, a small desk, a landline telephone hanging on the wall, specifies the regional daily which was able to visit the premises.

Others are in Fresnes, in QERs.

They were not all placed in the same remand prisons.

In pre-trial detention until the Assize Court

Eight covered by an arrest warrant, eight by a search warrant, they are now the subject of criminal proceedings and will be heard by the investigating magistrate on many occasions during the investigation.

Their warrant of deposit will most likely be renewed until their passage, within at least two years, before the specially composed assize court.

Some will be judged individually, some in grouped files, but “it is information that we cannot give”, specifies to

the lawyer who defends part of the files, Ludovic Rivière.

"For the moment, they are alone, but they can be part of a network, a family, linked to departures for Syria, explains Edith Bouvier, journalist specializing in the question and co-author of the

and

.

“It all depends on the people they hung out with there and their journey in detention.

These are women with very different profiles and varying levels of radicalization, she adds.

Moreover, the women who have returned from Syria are generally less radicalized than those who never left, because they know they have experienced life under the Islamic State (IS)”.

Still many women and children on site

The journalist specifies that all the “big profiles” have not yet been repatriated.

If one name particularly resonates, that of Emilie König, some are still there.

We think in particular of the wives of the Clain brothers, the same people who claimed responsibility for the attacks of November 13 in Paris and Saint-Denis and were sentenced to irreducible life imprisonment during the trial, despite their absence from the dock. because presumed dead in Syria.

There remain between 60 and 80 women who belonged to the IS in the camps, according to master Ludovic Rivière.

But the urgency, for the lawyer involved in this thorny case, Marie Dosé, is the 250 or so children who are still there and do not understand why they could not return with the others.

“They've seen their German and Belgian friends leave, now they've seen their French friends leave with their mothers… They wonder why they weren't chosen.

It's nightmarish, other repatriations must be organized quickly”.

It is likely that this repatriation signals a change in the doctrine adopted so far by the drip government.

Thus, “we can expect other returns”, hopes Edith Bouvier.

The thorny question of the repatriation of adult men

Especially since once in France, the rest generally goes without too many hitches.

“The children taken care of so far are all going to school and it's going well despite the nightmares and that sort of thing.

The staff is better and better trained and they support them well”, specifies the journalist who has remained in contact with several families.

The other question, even more delicate, is that of the repatriation of French men detained by the Kurds in Syria.

Despite the reluctance of the government, which would prefer that they be tried on the spot, "for reasons of security and respect for human rights, their return is essential", slice Ludovic Rivière.

A subject which, however, has not evolved at all in the speech of the executive.

For now.

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