France repatriated, Thursday, October 20, 15 jihadist women and 40 children who were in detention camps in northeastern Syria, announced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This collective repatriation operation, the second since the summer, confirms Paris’ break with the “case by case” policy, which has earned it condemnation by international bodies and blamed by French advisory bodies.
“After its condemnation by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and the European Court of Human Rights, France has no choice but to put an end to its case-by-case policy and must repatriate all children and mothers currently detained in camps in northeast Syria”told the World lawyer Marie Dosé, who represents many of the women detained in the camps.
According to a security source quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), 14 mothers, a young adult woman without children and 40 minors arrived Thursday at 3:30 a.m. in Villacoublay, near Paris. The minors have been taken into care by the child welfare services and will be subject to medical and social monitoring. The adults were handed over to the competent judicial authorities, specifies the Quai d’Orsay in its press release.
Until the summer of 2022, France favored repatriation on a “case by case” basis, which consists, de facto, in bringing back to the national soil children without their mothers, that is to say either orphans, or children whose mothers had agreed to sign a document renouncing their parental rights. Only 35 children presumed orphans had thus been repatriated by Paris, the last of which in January 2021.
” Such a waste ! »
On July 5, Paris carried out the largest repatriation operation since the fall of the last stronghold of the Islamic State (IS) organization in March 2019, in Baghouz. Sixteen jihadist women and 35 children were then repatriated. The authorities in charge of the fight against terrorism then indicated that a hundred women and nearly 250 children were still in the Syrian camps. The exact figure remains, however, difficult to establish with certainty. At the beginning of October, a woman and her two children were able to be transferred in turn.
Among European countries, France was increasingly isolated in its choice of repatriation “on a case-by-case basis”. Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany have decided to repatriate all of their child nationals, accompanied by their mothers when possible. The reversal of the Elysée was also motivated by the multiplication of condemnations by international bodies.
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