An outspoken tone characterized the conference: Processing radicalization, organized by the CCME on the sidelines of the 21st edition of the Casablanca book fair.
Moderated by Rachid Benzine, associate researcher at the religious observatory (IEP) Aix-en-Provence, which through his white card, invited to the debate Farid Abdelkrim: Humorist holding a Masters in Sociology, Patrick Amoyel: Freudian Psychoanalyst and Director Researcher of the University Nice-Sophia Antipolis and Amélie Boukhobza: clinical Psychologist in Nice, France.
Speaking from his own experience as a repented islamist, Farid Abdelkrim talks about the journey that led him to cross path with the Muslim brotherhood to which he pledged allegiance; His speech included several elements on the radicalism of French youth: “Young people need an idol, a model to follow”
Torn by their identity claims and the values of Western society, they can be easily retrieved by radical movements, “A charismatic person who exercises a power of fascination over him” typically what happened which he sums up in a book to be published soon entitled “Why I stopped being Islamist”
For his part, Patrick Amoyel talked about the empirical work of his association “Entre’autres” who works in everything that relates to radicalism, collaborating with the security services, their action is primarily targeted towards Muslim organizations, imams, social actors and then the mothers whose children are on the verge of radicalism
Through his work in the field, he was able to identify two trends in radicalism, namely a sociological axis (delinquency, crime) and the cultural axis
He also noted that departures for jihad which amounts in France to some 1,500 were two years ago, motivated by humanitarian reasons and mainly concerned Muslims or recent converts, this trend seems to be fading, giving way to new statistics showing that 90% of departures for jihad is made of men and 10% of women motivated by ideological and fighting reasons.
Amélie Boukhobza continued on this momentum by talking about her own experience as she works in so-called sensitive neighborhoods with young people in insertion or reinsertion. She noticed an identity conflict among French youth that now affects as many girls as boys noting that not long ago girls were more concerned with issues related to their family lives.
Moreover, Farid spoke of “the lines of responsibility” to mean that we should not hold Islam fully responsible for youth radicalization
Thus, he points to the failure of the French governments that have not been able so far to equip this youth with the tools they need to open up to the art, culture, media, and by extension affirm their integration into French society
He also rejects the use of the term Islamophobia as “talk of Islamophobia, means that there is only one Islam while there are several” he also advocates for a critical thinking of Islam and adapting it to different audiences
A View shared by Patrick who calls for an intelligent understanding of Islam and has reservations about the use of the term Islamophobia, “There is not necessarily racism against Islam but rather an extreme distrust vis à-vis the Islamisation of France “
