French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has called her country a “hotbed of S-files, that immense army of the shadows who want us to live in terror”. What are the S-Files?
Charlie Hebdo attackers on the list
The Kouachi brothers who led the January 2015 attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and their accomplice Amedy Coulibaly were on the La Fiche S (The S stands for Surete de l’Etat, state security). The files contain the names of thousands suspected of extremism whom the state is surveilling, but does not have enough formal proof to arrest
S16 for ISIS
“S” is one of the 21 categories identified by one or more letters. A “S card” has various sub-categories, from “S1” to “S16”. For example, “S14” refers to the jihadists returning from Iraq or Syria, Le Monde reported
Radical Islam in France
Yassin Salhi who decapitated his employer and drove his van into gas cylinders at a factory in June 2015 was also listed in the S-Files. He was put on the watch list because he attended a radical mosque in 2006 in Lyon, a counter-terror organisation told France 24. Salhi had been investigated in 2006 for radicalisation and links to the Salafist movement, Bernard Cazeneuve, the French PM said. Salafism is a literalist interpretation of Islam. In a New York Times piece, Robert F Worth calls Salafism a “typical gateway to jihadist violence though most of its practitioners, it must be emphasised, are peaceful”
The Fiche S isn’t stopping these ultra-religious punks from getting their hands on guns, renting hideouts and using the internet … These radicalised little ingrates must have their communications cut off, their Internet privileges cut off ... Just cut them off and force them into secular re-education, Clockwork Orange style