French authorities said on Friday they intend to seal off extremists within prisons and open new centres to reintegrate returning jihadists into society as part of a plan to halt the spread of radical Islam.
France is experimenting with various ways of ending the drift towards extremism of young people growing up on the margins of society, in predominantly immigrant suburbs where organisations like the Islamic State group or al-Qaeda recruit.
The plan unveiled Friday is the third in four years and aims to draw lessons from past failures, after three years marked by a series of attacks that left over 240 people dead.
“No one has a magic formula for ‘deradicalisation’ as if you might de-install dangerous software,” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in the northern city of Lille where he presented his strategy, flanked by a dozen ministers. “But in France and elsewhere there are good approaches to prevention and disengagement.”
France is particularly keen to stop extremism flourishing in its prisons, where some of the jihadists behind attacks in recent years first came under the spell of hardliners.
A total of 512 people are currently serving time for terrorism offences in France and a further 1,139 prisoners have been flagged up as being radicalised.
To prevent extremism spreading further, Mr. Philippe said he would create 1,500 places in separate prison wings “especially for radicalised inmates.”
Islamic Schools Under Scrutiny
Mr. Philippe also announced plans for three new centres that will attempt to reintegrate radicals referred by French courts, including jihadists returning from fallen ISIS strongholds in the Middle East.
A first de-radicalisation trial ended in failure last July, with a centre in western France that operated on a voluntary basis shutting after less than a year with no improvements to show.
Other measures announced by Mr. Philippe include:
— Investments in psychological care for returning children of jihadists. So far 68 children have been repatriated, most of them under 13.
— Tighter controls on private Islamic schools which have grown rapidly in number in recent years.
— More training for teachers to help them detect early signs of radicalisation and to debunk conspiracy theories.
— More investment in teaching students to separate fact from rumour on the internet.
— Making it easier to reassign public servants that show signs of radicalisation to jobs that do not involve contact with the public.