PARIS. “In France there will be other attacks for a simple reason: we don’t know how to defend ourselves”. Marc Trévidic was the most famous French anti-terrorist magistrate for almost 10 years. He investigated several Islamist groups, for example crossing one of the Bataclan kamikaze mentors who had announced – a year before the facts – that they wanted to hit a concert hall. “We all knew, among magistrates and secret services, that something big was brewing,” says Trévidic, 50, who has just published a novel, Ahlam, a love story set in Tunisia during the fall of the Ben Ali regime. The literary debut of the judge, long protected by Franck Brinsolaro, the agent later killed at Charlie Hebdo, is a surprise. Such as the fact that for over a year it is no longer the counter-terrorism attorney but the family affairs of the court of Lille. Forced transfer which, according to some, is due to the conflict that has had on some investigations with a part of the secret services. “I regret that my wealth of sources and knowledge is not being exploited at this time. Also, because I know that the worst is yet to come”.
Is this just the start of an escalation?

“It depends on us: if we still lose time while they in Raqqa or Mosul organize themselves to prepare new attacks. The short-term response is military. We need to destroy the Daesh bases between Iraq and Syria. But this will not solve the problem in absolute terms. After the decline of Al Qaeda, through the military intervention of the West, IS was born, and then there will be a new subject. In the long term the only solution against Islamic terrorism is to combat its ideology “.
But isn’t the work of the French counter-terrorism, of which you were the protagonist, of any use?

“I do not say this. But the means that the state has put in place are much lower than the threat. There has been an underestimation of the risks. In August 2015 I announced in various interviews the danger of extensive attacks in our country and yet the government he didn’t listen to me “.
Is it useful to prolong the state of emergency as decided by the government?

“In the last few months we have seen that the chain search of the state of emergency did not yield significant judicial results. And on the other hand the preventive arrests do not really stop a person who is approaching the Islamist groups, indeed they can aggravate the situation “.

What do you mean?

“Most radicalized young people make a journey in stages before entering jihad. I saw it during my inquiries: there is a time when they can still have an afterthought, be recovered in our society. It is not by putting them in prison or under house arrest, excluding them altogether, who will abandon the Islamist ideology. At that point, indeed, their only goal is to go to Syria or actively enter a radical organization. move. ”
And what would be the right measures?

“We must start de-radicalization programs, working on the psychology and reintegration of these people. The idea that we will protect ourselves only by enhancing security is wrong. The means will never be sufficient: the number of presumed French radicals to be monitored is equal if not higher than that of DGSI agents (Direction Générale de la Sécurité intérieure, ed.) “.
Was he turned away from counterterrorism because he was in conflict with the secret services?

“Intelligence should be at the service of the judiciary, not the other way around. Unfortunately, it is less and less the case. I supported it and perhaps my statements did not bring me many friends. The executive wants to control the secret services, avoiding the judges they can intrude, a trend that already existed when I was at the counter-terrorism prosecution and accentuated by the recent legislative reforms “.

(14 February 2016)