France and challenge of tracking 20,000 suspected extremists

PARIS: The latest attack in France by a gunman who was known to be a potential threat has led to renewed focus on how the country keeps track of suspected Islamist extremists.

France’s interior ministry compiles something known as the “S file” (the “S” stands for security) which contains anyone suspected of being a radical, including potentially dangerous leftist and far-right activists.There is also a separate list, the File for the Prevention of Terrorist Radicalisation (FSPRT), for people judged to be terror threats.

Radouane Lakdim, the gunman involved in last Friday’s shooting spree in the southern French towns of Carcassonne and Trebes, was listed in the S File in May 2014 and the FSPRT in September 2015.

A total of 19,745 were listed in the FSPRT as of February 20. The file includes people who represent varying degrees of threat, from someone who is reported by his boss for not shaking hands with women to a minor who has recently converted to Islam.

But there are more serious cases of people in contact with members of the Islamic State (IS) group, or others who have left for or wanted to travel to areas controlled by IS in Iraq or Syria.Once listed, a person will remain on the list for five years but might not be actively monitored. The file also contains records of potential links between suspects.

It updates gradually, as cases are reported by the security services or via calls to the toll-free tipline that launched in April 2014Most suspects are from four regions in France: the region around Paris known as the Ile-de-France, the area around Lyon known as Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes in the east, the southern Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrenees region and the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur in the southeast.

People from most socio-professional categories appear in the files, but the majority are young men from the suburbs around French cities where low-income immigrant communities, many from Muslim countries, are concentrated.

The problem for French security services is that most of the attackers in France over the previous four years had not been flagged by the security services. “You have to remember that this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, president of the Center for Terrorism Analysis (CAT).