France now investigates more than one case of jihadi terrorism each week, reaching a new high since it created the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) in 2019 to centralize terrorism cases after a string of deadly attacks.
We are, grotesquely, midwives to child soldiers of Islamism, fashioned in dingy back rooms and the algorithmic basements of the internet.
While PNAT opened a record number of 67 investigations into Islamist terrorism in 2024, the anti-terrorism task force has been investigating 51 new cases of jihadism since January 2025, according to figures published by French newspaper Le Figaro on December 3.
Officials also warn of growing numbers of radicalized “child soldiers” participating in “Islamist-inspired crimes and offenses,” such as a 13-year-old girl’s foiled February plan to attack a synagogue or Shiite mosque.
The investigations represent only the tip of the jihadist iceberg, since dozens of cases involving glorification of Islamist terrorism and incitement to jihadi acts remain under the jurisdiction of local prosecutors and are not being probed by the PNAT.
Since its establishment in 2019, PNAT has been investigating a total of 429 cases of jihadi terrorism. In 2019, it opened 98 cases, with the figures dropping slightly to 86 in 2020. A decline was observed in 2021 (48 referrals), 2022 (41), and 2023 (38).
Investigations rose in 2023 after Mohamed Mogouchkov, a radicalized student, stabbed his teacher, Dominique Bernard, to death on October 13. The murder was followed by the Bir-Hakeim bridge attack, where ISIS-inspired jihadi Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab killed a German-Filipino tourist and injured two others near the Eiffel Tower on December 2, 2023.
Minors Increasingly Involved in Islamist Terrorism
PNAT began investigating 118 new cases between January 1, 2024, and November 27, 2025, coinciding with a rise in the number of jihadi “child soldiers” and young adults.
In 2025, the anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office charged 20 minors with Islamist terrorism, compared to 19 in 2024, 15 in 2023, and 2 in 2022. Seventy percent of those involved in jihadist violent action plans in 2024 and 2025 were under 22 years old. PNAT also arrested 130 minors with ties to the jihadist movement between 2023 and June 2025, with varying legal outcomes.
In March, a 17-year-old French-Turkish youth was arrested for planning a knife attack. In June, police arrested a 17-year-old French-Algerian for allegedly attempting a terrorist attack on Notre-Dame Cathedral, a nightclub, and a concert by the rapper Jul. In November, police arrested the ex-girlfriend of Salah Abdeslam, the mastermind behind the Bataclan theater massacre, for planning a jihadi attack with her new husband and a 17-year-old minor.
The most recent case involving minors saw the arrest on November 30 of two 16-year-olds, one of whom is Chechen, for threatening an attack on a synagogue. PNAT charged the pair with “participation in a terrorist criminal association with the aim of preparing one or more crimes against persons.”
The statistics regarding minors do not include attempts to travel to jihadist zones or benefit from terrorist financing. Police arrested a 16-year-old French girl and four other jihadis in March, June, and September 2025 for planning to travel to Syria. A young Afghan was indicted in October for allegedly financing activities linked to the Islamic State in Khorasan.
“What chills the blood is not only the rise in jihadi files on a magistrate’s desk, but the shrinking age of the faces in those dossiers. We are, grotesquely, midwives to child soldiers of Islamism, fashioned in dingy back rooms and the algorithmic basements of the internet,” Catherine Perez-Shakdam, an expert on Islamic terrorism, radicalization, and antisemitism, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).
“This is no longer merely a matter for counter-terrorism units; it is a question of how a supposedly civilized society guards its young from ideological predation. Unless we pry these children from the clenched fist of fanaticism and offer them a more generous story to live in, we shall solve cases while quietly forfeiting a generation,” Perez-Shakdam, executive director of the Forum for Foreign Relations, emphasized.
Responding to a question from French parliamentarian Michèle Tabarot, the Minister of the Interior confirmed that the proportion of minors among individuals actively monitored for Islamist terrorist activity has tripled, rising from 1.7 percent in 2020 to 5.6 percent.
Tabarot had pointed out that 2,558 individuals were being monitored for jihadi-related offenses each month in 2024, an increase of nearly 6 percent compared to 2023, with 65 percent of those facing prosecution being minors.
“France has been one of the countries most targeted by jihadist propaganda,” Nicolas Lerner, the head of the General Directorate of External Security, told Le Monde. “Islamist terrorism is a threat that our societies will have to face over the long term.”
