As France marks the tenth anniversary of the horrific Bataclan attacks, a new arrest has served as a stark reminder that the threat of jihadist violence has not disappeared. A former girlfriend of the only surviving attacker from the November 2015 massacres has been arrested on suspicion of planning her own violent act.
The woman, a 27-year-old French convert to Islam named Maëva B, had developed a relationship with Salah Abdeslam through letters. Abdeslam, who is 36, is currently serving a life sentence in a prison near the Belgian border following his conviction in 2022. The connection between the two was discovered when prison guards found that Abdeslam had been using a USB key that contained jihadist propaganda. They traced the origin of the USB key to face-to-face meetings that the prisoner had been having with Maëva B.
This discovery led detectives to investigate Maëva B’s own computer and phone. On these devices, they found evidence that she may have been planning a jihadist attack of her own. On Monday, she was placed under formal judicial investigation along with two other people who are believed to be her associates. As France remembers the worst attack in its modern history, this new arrest has focused attention on an enemy that has never truly gone away. According to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, six terrorist plots have been stopped this year alone, and the threat level in the country remains high.
A Night of Terror That Changed France
The word Bataclan has become synonymous with extreme Islamist violence in France ever since the Paris attacks in 2015. On the evening of November 13 of that year, a group of jihadist gunmen and suicide bombers carried out a series of coordinated attacks across the city. The violence culminated in a bloody siege at the Bataclan concert hall in eastern Paris.
Before the attack on the concert hall, three suicide bombers detonated their explosives outside the Stade de France, where an international football match was being played. Other members of the group then used Kalashnikov rifles to open fire on people who were enjoying a night out at bars and cafes near the Bataclan.
At the concert hall, the American rock band The Eagles of Death Metal had just begun their performance when three jihadists stormed in and began firing indiscriminately into the crowd. They took hostages and later blew themselves up as police forces moved in to end the siege. In total, 130 people were killed in the attacks, with 90 of those deaths occurring at the Bataclan. More than 400 other people were treated in hospitals for their injuries, and countless more have suffered from long-term psychological trauma.
The Evolving Nature of the Jihadist Threat
In the ten years since the attacks, much has changed. The Islamic State (IS) group, which planned and directed the 2015 attacks, has lost its territory in Syria and Iraq. This means that its ability to plan and carry out complex terrorist operations has been greatly reduced. The Bataclan attackers were young men, mostly of North African descent, who were recruited in Belgium and France. They were trained in IS territory in the Middle East and then returned to Europe by hiding among the large flow of migrants at the time. They were able to rely on a network of supporters who provided them with shelter, transportation, and money.
According to Gilles Kepel, a leading expert on the Middle East, intelligence services have also become much more effective at controlling online radicalization. In an interview with Le Figaro, he said that they now have access to advanced IT resources that allow them to detect and stop many individual plots before they can be carried out.
However, Kepel warns that the danger now comes from what he calls “ambient jihadism.” He explained that the threat is now mostly home-grown and involves much younger individuals. “It feeds on friendships and social networks of the like-minded, without there ever necessarily being people having to give and obey orders,” he said. He believes this new threat is even more concerning because it is so easily influenced by world events. He noted that the conflict in Gaza and Israel is having a “traumatic effect” on the minds of many citizens and is being “exploited by the entrepreneurs of anger.”
A Day of Remembrance and Reflection
The commemorations for the tenth anniversary of the attacks will be held throughout the day on Thursday at the various attack sites. The day will conclude with the opening of a special memorial garden near Paris City Hall. As night falls, the Eiffel Tower will be lit up in the red, white, and blue of the French flag.
In a surprising turn of events, Salah Abdeslam has indicated through his lawyer that he would be willing to participate in a “restorative justice” process. This would involve meetings between victims and perpetrators to discuss the impact of the crime. While some families have expressed interest in the idea, others are strongly opposed. Laurent Sourisseau, a cartoonist who was wounded in the Charlie Hebdo attack just months before the Bataclan massacres, called Abdeslam’s offer “perverse.” He argued that terrorism is not a common crime and that Abdeslam is trying to make people think his crime was like any other, which it was not.
