The French Path to Jihad

Abstract

Several French nationals or residents have fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan and the insurgency in Iraq. Zacarias Moussaoui, the most famous French jihadist, is now serving a life sentence in an American prison for his connection to 9/11. In the following selection, John Rosenthal, who writes on European politics, analyzes a published collection of interviews of suspected members of al Qaeda and fellow travelers in French prisons by social scientist Fared Khosrokhavar. Almost all these inmates were either born in France or were long-term residents of France who came originally from the Mahghreb, the North African area that had once been under French control. French was either their native language or they spoke it fluently. One theory challenged by Khosrokhavar is that jihadists are poor and uneducated. As the research shows, “jihadists are largely recruited from relatively more privileged social strata in their countries of origin. As a rule, the inmates interviewed are highly educated, well-traveled, and multilingual.”