Joining the Islamic State from France between 2014 and 2016: an observational follow-up study

Abstract

A new model of radicalization has appeared in Western countries since the 2010s. However, few empirical data are available to interpret the profiles of European young people who have embraced radical Islamism. Mixing qualitative/quantitative approaches, the present study is the first to explore their motives for radicalization, as well as how characteristics at baseline predicted their status at follow-up (FU). In 2014-2015, 150 individuals (mean age: 19.82 years; 101 (67.3%) females; 100 (67%) Muslim converts) were followed-up prospectively by the Centre de Prévention contre les Dérives Sectaires liées à l'Islam (CPDSI) until September 2016. Using a multiple correspondence analysis, we found that eight motivational dimensions (interest in violence; feelings of depression, responsibility, uncertainty or loneliness; experience of abuse; issues with sexuality; and poor insight) combining in eight statistical factors drove individuals towards radicalization. At FU, 95(63%) were no longer radicalized, 21(14%) were disengaged, 19(13%) were still radicalized, and 15(10%) had reached the Islamic State. Univariate and multivariate analyses found some protective factors defining individuals with developmental vulnerabilities that can be encountered in many psychopathologies. In addition, multivariate models showed that worse status at FU was predicted by being married, having married parents, having attempted to radicalize other relatives, and having a close friend or relative imprisoned before radicalization. We conclude that multidimensional efforts to de-radicalize young people are efficient, although a worse prognosis is associated with neighborhood/proximal phenomena. Prevention should target these local/proximal contexts to further prevent radicalization.

The Indoctrination and the Treatment of Children from ISIS

“…Qualitatively and quantitatively, we explored their micro and macro characteristics. We have also eliminated the risk and protective factors that may facilitate their disengagement from violent extremism [10,11].…”

Practical Guide of Assessment of Disengagement from Jihadist Violent Extremism: Indicators of deradicalization

“…quantitative verification of the engagement motives [26] we discovered with an anthropological method [68]. Then, we proceeded to crossed variables "of becoming": what are the actual social, psychological, medical, etc., characteristics in the deradicalized individuals' group, starting from the principle that they could have had a positive impact on the fact that they managed to grieve their partners and the jihadist ideology in an identical national and international political context?…”

“…Then, we proceeded to crossed variables "of becoming": what are the actual social, psychological, medical, etc., characteristics in the deradicalized individuals' group, starting from the principle that they could have had a positive impact on the fact that they managed to grieve their partners and the jihadist ideology in an identical national and international political context? Then we did the same exercise within a nondisengaged group of young people [26]. In a second phase, we analysed these findings by crossing the quantitative and the qualitative approach, the collected data from radicalized individuals' parents and themselves, and by reintroducing the anthropological analysis that recontextualizes these results with regard to the acquired feedback in these young people's support during a two-year follow-up.…”

“…Our studied population is not strictly representative regarding its socio-cultural categories but it is when it comes to their state of mind, since 350 of them tried to return to the Iraqi-Syria zone and/or to participle in the preparation of an attack on French territory, and the 100 other individuals were intensively related on the internet with jihadist small groups taking part in propaganda. Our sample includes individuals with various characteristics and features on living conditions, family, political, cultural, social context, physical relations with a terrorist group, motivations, grievances along with individual vulnerabilities [20,26,27]. This information detailed in our previous article [20] is seemingly representative of interactive factors that might lead to a process of radicalization tending towards violence.…”

“…After recalling the eight main engagement motives our qualitative study targeted [19], confirmed by a quantitative study [26], as well as the eight risk mechanisms related to these trajectories, we will point out how we transformed these data into the NOORAPPLI 3D's items.…”