French Legislator Recommends the Targeted Assassination of “French” Jihadis Before They Return From Syria

Pierre-Henri Dumont is a deputy in the French National Assembly for Les Républicains (formerly UMP), the party of former presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.

In the following television talk show appearance, Mr. Dumont makes the case for the targeted assassination abroad of “French” mujahideen, rather than letting them return to France. The death penalty has been abolished in France, and the longest stretch a criminal can do in prison is twenty years. Mr. Dumont is in favor of solving the problem by killing the jihadis before they can return to France, but the horrified female moderators are steadfastly opposed to the idea.

Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:00   What’s shocking is that we’re talking about people who took up arms against French values.
00:04   Who are “brothers in arms” — since this is how they call themselves —
00:08   people who killed French people in [jihadist] attacks.
00:12   And the only answer that can be given to those people, who are currently detained in Syria
00:16   and Iraq, is to make them come back to France in order to give them
00:20   20 years in prison, in a high-security penitentiary and then release them. —Do we have a choice,
00:24   if they are expelled from Syria, wouldn’t it be better… —I think that there are…
00:29   that at least they know where they’re going, know where they’re… —there were other choices…
00:33   There is a choice, which is a judicial choice, which is “cooperation with the enemy”. Withdraw
00:36   their French nationality. There is another choice which is, obviously,
00:39   the elimination of those people. It has been done in the past.
00:42   And I think that a person who took up arms
00:45   against France, against the values that France is defending everywhere in the world,
00:49   and especially on her territory, doesn’t deserve to be French any longer. —But “elimination”, wait,
00:53   the death penalty? —I was going to ask that as well. —“Elimination”, it’s the eliminations that are
00:58   targeted, which have been already done by different services, in Syria, in Iraq,
01:02   Yes, that means… —I’m very much paying attention to what you are saying —That means to kill
01:06   It means to kill? —It means to kill people who took up arms against France. We don’t have to,
01:10   France doesn’t have to, in any case, never, re-host people who took up arms against France.
01:14   Very well. I really understand why today I could never respect
01:19   the values of the group Les Républicains. That is clear. —I understand why you support those
01:23   laxist values which unfortunately cause the French today to not feel confident and safe. —But you
01:28   are talking about killing people, so whatever are… — But they took up arms against France, Madame!
01:31   whatever their reasons, we shouldn’t sentence them… —But do we kill them upon arrival in France?
01:34   We kill them over there. —We kill them over there? We shoot them over there?
01:37   Those are targeted assassinations. It has always been done.
01:40   It has always been done by secret services. —Targeted assassinations, aha.
01:43   I think that what is really important today is to know what we want. The international
01:47   situation has changed, so we need to take it into account. The safety of French people
01:52   needs to be assured, and in order to assure it, we need to know who those people are
01:56   and where they are and if there is a risk, even a tiny one, that those people might be dispersed,
02:00   that they go elsewhere and that they may put in jeopardy the safety of the French people, then
02:04   for that reason it’s better to repatriate them, detain them and try them. Because I’d like
02:09   to remind you that death penalty has been abolished —I didn’t say that it should be done in France…
02:12   Madame, they took up arms against France and killed French citizens! —…detain them,
02:15   try them for really the crimes they committed… —That means that they’ll get 20 years in prison…
02:19   There’s no other answer —They’ll arrive in France, they’ll get 20 years in prison, they
02:22   might have an opportunity, or not, to radicalize others in prison, they will be released… —Don’t
02:25   pass judgement before trial —So you think they should get
02:28   less than 20 years in prison? —There is no real “life sentence” in France.
02:31   I am not justice. I am not justice. —If you’re a legislator you can change the law.
02:34   There is no… — [Interior Minister] Christophe Castaner specified that he of course would be
02:37   arrested and tried, and — you would think — imprisoned, but… —And the maximum is twenty years,
02:41   So they’ll be released in twenty years. —If judgement has been passed before they have been tried,
02:44   we will listen to Mr. Dumont… —They will be detained, but… — but I think that today an answer
02:47   saying “assassinate”… —We cannot go beyond it, Madame, we cannot go beyond it — to assassinate
02:50   those people isn’t possible! —The people who took up arms against France and all of its people —
02:53   This is an argument which we cannot hear, and it’s not at all a position that we will defend.
 

11 thoughts on “French Legislator Recommends the Targeted Assassination of “French” Jihadis Before They Return From Syria

  1. A Frenchman with some gonads who isn’t a cheese-eating surrender monkey? What is the world coming to?

    I don’t know what is more amazing; that a French politician other than Marine LePen uttered something so commonsensical, or that it was advocated publically on national tv.

  2. Sounds nuts to me. The French are not willing to trust a court with the death sentence or a real life sentence, after going through a trial, rules of evidence, and presumably an impartial jury (or judge), but they seem willing to entrust an unelected, unaccountable security bureaucrat with a license to kill any French citizen who is abroad.

    In my opinion, what stuff like this does is allow a country to coast along on horrible policies without examining the policies themselves. It’s like the heavy use of drones by the US to kill jihadis, and any civilians in the area, by remote control. To the extent the policy works, and I’m not sure it works at all, it allows the US to participate in numerous brush-fire wars without the US casualties the trigger Congressional opposition, and also allows the US to kind of get away from a sensible examination of its immigration and visa programs.

    • I don’t share your views in this instance. There is a world of difference between indiscriminate drone strikes in random countries, and targeting enemy combatants on the field of battle. This is a special circumstance where terrorists that were residing in France traveled to another country to commit atrocities. French laws do not adequately provide for this kind of situation, and bringing terrorists back to France will only result in a best case outcome of imprisonment for 20yrs in a cushy French prison at considerable taxpayer expense. Worse, at the end of their imprisonment they will be released back into Europe to continue their jihad. The most likely result will be a drawn out legal battle where they avoid imprisonment entirely or receive a slap on the wrist, all at enormous cost to the French taxpayer.

      In an ideal world, Islam would be declared a subversive and seditious political ideology and banned in western countries, and those who take up arms in the name of islam classed as enemy combatants who would be subject to the laws of war while on the battlefield, and treated as prisoners of war when captured, thereby allowing indefinite detainment for the duration of hostilities.

      Taking up arms in support of an islamic state in my opinion, is a de facto renunciation of citizenship and forfeiture of legal rights and protections otherwise afforded to French citizens. Since they have acted as enemy combatants, they should be afforded the status of enemy combatants, which means being subject to targeting on the battlefield, and indefinite imprisonment for the duration of hostilities if captured.

      • The issue of drones is a red herring to this particular discussion, although I was the one that brought them up. So, my bad.

        The issue of targeted assassinations is different from the indefinite detention of ISIS fighters as enemy combatants. I actually have no real objection to detention of the fighters in an off-shore prison. It’s a different situation and within the scope of present laws.

        What I address in particular is targeted assassination of people already in custody. Remember, the issue is how to deal with fighters already in prison camps. These are not fighters with guns holed up in caves. I’m not expressing any sympathy for them. I’m merely addressing their legal status.

        The French government, like the US government, is obviously in gridlock, unable to formulate or pass sensible legislation responsive to the current dangers. So, is a country better off giving security agencies the right to assassinate citizens traveling abroad? I realize that’s not the idea, but once you give an agency the right to determine its own assassination policies without a legal review, you can’t count on maintaining control over it.

        It may be that the descent into dictatorship necessitated by the importing of diverse, completely different populations, will buy the country some time. It will be at the expense of future, but might be the best stop-gap solution. Ultimately, the agencies may decide that “Islamophobes” are the real, existential enemy. Look what happened to Elizabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff. She received a criminal conviction for a factual statement about Muhammad, which was backed up by the misnamed European Court of Human Rights. The really significant part of the whole affair was that Eizabeth, as she stated, received absolutely no support in her native Austria for her right to speak. None.

        So, you have to be very careful when you advocate for the final solution (I know what terms I’m using) to be administered by unaccountable agencies. The cure may, or may not, be worse than the disease.

    • Next best solution would be war tribunals in place. Why spend a load of a french tax payer money on murderers and butchers that are responsible for atrocities and war crimes. Allies are still finding mass graves of innocent children, women and old.

      The liberal left brainwashed politician will never understand.

  3. Death penalty, right from the spot , this women are do stupid and naive , My God what is happening with western people today, they lost the brains totally..

    • Spot on. Next terrorist attack in France no doubt to be
      Reported as:-

      NOTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM.

      STUPID, VACUOUS, VIRTUAL SIGNALLING WOMEN.

      Last I heard the west had declared a war on terrorism

      Therefore if you actively join the enemy and fight
      Against your own countrymen you are a traitor
      And should be treated as such accordingly.

      In WW11 Lord Haw Haw, as he was known, a
      British broadcaster who beamed propoganda
      On behalf of the Nazis, was captured and hung
      As a traitor accordingly.

      Get a Grip France, dump the man child Macron
      And elect someone with guts and common sense
      Whilst you still can.

  4. So, these potentially homo-erotic fantasy targets of Macron (yes I have come to intensively despise this Patriots-Mutilator over these last months, hence my take-no-prisoner-vulgarity) which his Prime Minister calls “Firstly they are French” (d’abord ils sont des Francais) will be welcomed back with open arms to do some more French “road-kill” ? Do you remember WHAT they did – at least in the pictures that came through ? Locking HUMANS into a cage, lighting the fire and burning them alive ? Or locking them into a cage and slowly, slooooowwwwly, sinking the cage into the water…..one-way….down, submergeing them ? With no route or hope to escape ? And “they” said that the “French Jihadis” were the worst of them …..

    I do remember.

    And I would vote for this Republicain….in a heartbeat !

  5. If these “french” terrorists knew they are becoming targets while they are abroad, they would return (the faster they can) to zeropa to be safe again, protected by the human-rights court of Strasbourg and the likes. (In any case I do not think of them like terrorists, but paid employees (by the means of many humanitarian and other NGOs) of some western governments).

  6. I understand the temptation but:

    If it becomes possible today to assassinate a citizen because he is moslem/jihadi, whatever, it will, tomorrow, be equally possible along the same line of reasoning to assassinate anyone for any “extremist”belief.
    Call anyone an extremist NAZI and it becomes legal to assassinate them?

    A lawful republic can never afford to do that without shoveling its own grave in the process.

    Now – what any individual who is not mandated by the government does along those lines is an entirely different matter.

Comments are closed.