ABSTRACT
For François Thuillier, over the past 15 years, French counter-terrorism policy has fallen into line with the West's “war on terror”. The thundering of the “counter-terrorist” discourse, the language of fear, the tightening of the institutional system, the penal exceptionalism, the pre-eminence of administrative measures, the use of mass intelligence without real counter-powers, the importation of the “fight against radicalization”, the essentialization of Islam in terrorist crime, and the concept of “national security” have put an end to any pretension of a French model in this matter. Worse, by trying to play the good pupil of the anti-terrorist ideology, France has fragmented its social fabric and weakened its founding republican principles without substantially increasing its operational efficiency. The main result has been, like in other countries, the unleashing of an internal war for identity, whose outcome remains unknown. However, another path, one that would reconcile operational efficiency and the rule of law, national sovereignty, and democratic control, is within the reach of a country that, without denying democratic values, still has many assets to find an innovative way of fighting this unique form of crime.
