France remembers the Bataclan attack, but knows the enemy has not left

As France marks the 10th anniversary of the Bataclan massacre, it is yet another reminder of the permanence of the jihadist threat.

The ex-girlfriend of a jihadist who was the only survivor of the November 2015 attack has been arrested on suspicion of planning his own violent act.

Maeva B., a 27-year-old French woman who converted to Islam, began a letter-writing relationship with Salah Abdeslam, 36, who was convicted in 2022 and is serving a life sentence in a prison near the Belgian border.

When guards discovered that Abdeslam had been using a USB key containing jihadist propaganda, they traced its origins back to a face-to-face meeting Abdeslam had with the prisoner, Maeba B. Robin.

Detectives then searched Maeva B.'s own computer and phone, where they found evidence that she may have been planning a jihadist attack, and on Monday she, along with two alleged associates, became the subject of a judicial investigation.

As France marks 10 years since the deadliest attack in modern history, the arrests focus attention on an enemy that never disappeared.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said six plots had been thwarted this year and the threat level remained high.

“Unfortunately, no one can guarantee an end to the attacks,” President Emmanuel Macron said at the inauguration of the memorial garden on November 13, 2015.

“However, I can assure you that we will respond uncompromisingly to anyone who takes up arms against France.”

On the night of November 13, 2015, jihadist gunmen and suicide bombers carried out a series of coordinated attacks, culminating in a bloody attack on the Bataclan concert hall in eastern Paris.

Earlier, three suicide bombers detonated themselves outside the Stade de France, where an international soccer match was being held. Other members of the gang then opened fire with Kalashnikovs at people drinking in bars and cafes not far from the Bataclan.

There, a performance by the American group Eagles of Death Metal had just begun when three jihadists burst in and fired indiscriminately into the auditorium. They took hostages and blew themselves up as police moved in.

In all, 130 people died, 90 in Bataclan, and more than 400 were treated in hospitals. Countless others suffered psychological trauma.

Since then, the word Bataclan has become synonymous with radical Islamist attacks in France, much the same way it did with 9/11 in the United States.

There have been other attacks since then, including the Nice truck massacre in July 2016 and the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty in October 2020, but the scale and organization of November 13, 2015 stood out.

Ten years have passed and a lot has changed. The disappearance of the Islamic State (IS) group as a major force in Syria and Iraq means that the means to conceive, plan and carry out complex terrorist plots have been greatly reduced.

The Bataclan attackers were mainly young men from North Africa who were recruited in Belgium and France, trained in Islamic State territory in the Middle East, and returned to Europe among the vast migrant flows.

They had access to a network of supporters everywhere who could provide them with shelter, transportation, and cash.

Intelligence agencies are also highly effective at controlling online radicalization, said Jill Kepel, a leading Middle East expert.

“They now have access to IT resources…which allows them to detect many individual initiatives, often less sophisticated ones, and stop them before they even begin,” he said in an interview with Le Figaro.

But Kepel says the current danger comes from what he calls “environmental jihadism.”

“This threat is now domestic and much younger. It feeds on friendships and social networks of like-minded people, and it doesn't necessarily require people to give or obey orders,” he said.

He believes this threat is all the more worrying as events in Gaza and Israel have had a “traumatic impact” on many people's minds and their anger is being “exploited by entrepreneurs.”

France's current political crisis, he argues, is also made more dangerous, with an incompetent presidency replaced by a partisan parliament with increasing influence from left-right extremists.

“When what divides us becomes more important than what unites us as French people and tears at our national consensus, we will see cracks under our feet and less and less restraint of violence,” he said.

Remembrance events on Thursday will be held throughout the day at various attack sites, culminating on November 13 with the opening of a new garden in central Paris.

At night, the Eiffel Tower is painted in the red, white, and blue of the French flag.

French media is full of testimonies and memories from survivors telling how their lives have changed.

In an unexpected turn of events, Salah Abdeslam has revealed through her lawyer that she is willing to cooperate with “restorative justice” efforts to help victims and perpetrators discuss the impact of their crimes.

While this idea is debated by some families, others are vehemently opposed.

Laurent Sourisseau, a cartoonist also known as Rhys, who was shot and injured in the Charlie Hebdo attack a few months before the Bataclan massacre, said Mr Abdeslam's offer was “perverse”.

“Restorative justice also exists for other types of crimes, crimes in general,” he said.

“But terrorism is not a common crime. Salah Abdeslam would like us to think that his crime was like any other crime, but that was not the case.”