Article 57 of the French Civil Code states that the name chosen by parents must be in “the best interests of the child.” If the public prosecutor thinks the name “Jihad” is contrary to the law, he can ask a judge to order the name to be changed. If the parents are unable or unwilling to choose a new name, the judge has the right to choose a name.
Of the 1,900 French jihadists fighting with the Islamic State, as many as one-fifth have received as much as €500,000 ($580,000) in social welfare payments from the French state, according to Le Figaro.
Henda Ayari, in an interview with Le Parisien, gave detailed public testimony accusing Tariq Ramadan of sexually assaulting her in Paris. She said that Ramadan believes that “either you wear a veil or you get raped.”
October 1. A 29-year-old illegal immigrant from Tunisia stabbed two women to death at the central train station in Marseille. Witnesses heard the assailant shout “Allahu Akbar” as he lunged at the women with a 20-centimetre (eight-inch) knife before threatening soldiers, who shot him dead. The man, identified as Ahmed Hanachi, was using seven different identities and had a long criminal history. He had been arrested in Lyon for shoplifting just days before the attack, but those charges were dropped due to a lack evidence. He was released, despite not having the documents needed to live in France. Why he was never deported remains unclear.
October 2. Five people were arrested in Paris after police found four makeshift bombs at a building in the 16th arrondissement, one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods. Police said there was no one living in the apartment block who might be considered a target for jihadists. Interior Minister Gérard Collomb surmised that the bomb was simply meant to create fear: “Blowing up a building in a posh neighborhood shows that no one is safe…that it could happen anywhere in France.” He added: “This shows that the level of the threat in France is extremely high…yes, even if the Islamic State has suffered military setbacks, we are still in a state of war.”
October 2. The trial began of Abdelkader Merah, the 35-year-old brother of Mohamed Merah. In March 2012, Mohamed in March 2012 had gone on a nine-day shooting spree in southern France, killing three soldiers and gunning down a teacher and three children at a Jewish school before being shot dead by police. Abdelkader stands accused of “knowingly” helping to facilitate the “preparation” of the attack, in particular by stealing the scooter used for the three separate shootings. He appeared alongside 34-year-old Fettah Malki, accused of giving Mohamed Merah a bulletproof jacket, an Uzi submachine gun and the ammunition he unloaded on his victims. Abdelkader Merah faces a possible life sentence while Malki could get 20 years in prison.
October 5. Six gas canisters attached to a “crude detonator device” were found under several trucks at a cement company in Paris. The trucks, parked in the French capital’s northeastern 19th arrondissement, belonged to Franco-Swiss cement company Lafarge-Holcim. Lafarge is being investigated over claims that it paid taxes to the Islamic State and other armed groups in Syria to keep a plant running in a war zone. The company admitted that it resorted to “unacceptable measures” to continue operations at a now-closed cement factory in northern Syria in 2013 and 2014, after most French groups had quit the war-torn country.
October 6. A French woman who travelled three times to Syria in support of her jihadist son was sentenced to 10 years in prison for being part of a terrorist conspiracy. Christine Rivière, 51, was sentenced for her “unfailing commitment” to jihad and for helping a number of young women travel to Syria to marry jihadists, including her son, Tyler Vilus. Rivière, a Muslim convert who was nicknamed “Mama Jihad,” said of her son: “I didn’t want to push him to die a martyr, but that could happen. Then he would be in heaven, near Allah.”
October 6. French prosecutors charged three men in connection with a makeshift explosive device made of gas canisters, placed inside an apartment block in western Paris. Amine A, his cousin Sami B, and Aymen B., were charged with “attempted murder in an organized group in connection with a terrorist enterprise” and placed in pre-trial detention. All three were arrested on October 2, two days after the device was found in the exclusive 16th arrondissement. Amine A., 30, and Aymen B., 29, are both on the terror watch list.
October 9. French police and intelligence services are surveilling around 15,000 jihadists living on French soil, according to Le Journal du Dimanche. Of these, some 4,000 are at “the top of the spectrum” and most likely to carry out an attack.
October 10. President Emmanuelle Macron announced a plan to open immigration offices in Niger and Chad to identify persons eligible for asylum on lists provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and bring them directly to France. The stated aim is to “better prevent an influx of economic migrants” who are not eligible for asylum. In all, France will take in 10,000 people, not only from Niger and Chad, but also from Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, by October 2019.
October 11. Interior Minister Gérard Collomb announced the dismissal of the central government’s top representative in the southern Rhône region, after a report criticized “errors of judgement” and “serious faults” in handling foreigners whose papers are not in order. The report was commissioned after 29-year-old Tunisian Ahmed Hanachi stabbed two women to death at the central train station in Marseille on October 1.
October 11. A 20-year-old woman was arrested in Rouen on suspicion that she may have played a role in a jihadist attack on a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. On July 26, 2016, two jihadists had broken into the church and murdered Father Jacques Hamel while he was celebrating mass. While leaving the church, they were shot dead by the police. A few hours later, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Police say that shortly before the attack, the woman had been in contact with one of the jihadists.
October 12. A French intelligence agent accidentally sent a text message to the mobile phone of a jihadist, inadvertently warning him that he was under surveillance and being monitored, according to M6 television. The target, a “proselytizing Islamist” living in Paris, responded by directly calling the agent and informing him of his mistake.
October 12. The interior ministry announced that France will maintain border checks with its European neighbors until April 30, 2018, because of “persistent” terror threats. The 1985 Schengen Agreement ended passport checks and other protective measures on borders, but after the jihadist attacks in Paris in November 2015, France resumed them.