Data, investigations and concrete cases tell of a jihadist threat that has never really receded. In France, attacks, foiled plans and the radicalization of minors are increasing.
Beyond the Alps, the Generation Z of the children or grandchildren of Muslim immigrants, angry at Paris and at Westerners in generaltoo often suffers the fascination of violence and too often looks to green jihad insignia to move from hate to facts.
The context makes it easier. There jihadist threat remains the main danger factor in France. A reality confirmed by the decision to cancel the traditional New Year’s concert on the Champs-Élysées due to “security reasons” despite the wait of a million people. The Minister of the Interior Laurent Nuñez has ordered that all major festive events be considered sensitive high-risk targetsordering the consequent strengthening of intelligence.
The danger has not disappeared
Commemorate the 130 victims of the attacks of November 13, 2015provided the institutions with the opportunity to reiterate that «the danger is far from over». Extremist activity shows no signs of exhaustion, as evidenced by the number of completed attacks, intercepted projects and the number of open proceedings. The operational threat is accompanied by a continuum “judicial noise”fueled by cases of apology for terrorism and from crimes inspired byradical Islamism which, while not always falling within the technical definition of terrorism, produce an equally destabilizing impact. The episodes that occurred on the island of Oleron (car thrown into the crowd shouting “Allahu akbar”, Wednesday 5 November), Marseille (stabbings, in September) e Paris (three girls aged 18, 19 and 21 arrested on 8 November on charges of planning an attack) fit into this picture.
Emergency numbers
The data is merciless. From the 1 January to 27 November 2025the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (Pnat) he opened 51 investigations attributable to jihadism, with an average higher than one issue per week. A recent high had been reached in 2024, with 67 proceedings. Looking at the historical series, the peak occurs in the two-year period 2019-2020with 98 and 86 casesfollowed by a contraction between 2021 and 2023 (48, 41 and 38), parallel to the decrease in attacks. The murder of the professor Dominique Bernard at the Arras high school at the hands of twenty-year-old Mohammed Mogouchkov, and the attack on the bridge of Bir-Hakeim in autumn 2023, however, they marked atrend reversal: between January 2024 and November 2025 they were opened 118 investigationsbringing the pace back to one weekly basis.
Minors increasingly involved
This is the general framework within which the kids. As of November 27, they were formally charged 20 minors for jihadist terrorism crimes, one of which just 13 years old. In 2024 there were 19, in 2023 only 15 and in 2022 just 2. Among the other suspects, young adults prevail: the 70 percent of people involved in planned attacks in 2024-2025 he had not reached the age of 22. Overall, approximately 2023 to summer 2025 130 minors linked to jihadist contexts were stopped.
Early radicalization
There early radicalization It also emerges strongly from the most recent investigations. In recent weeks, in Paris, two boys from 16 years old were placed in pre-trial detention for planning a matrix attack anti-Semitic. As reported by the newspaper Le Parisienone of the two, a Russian citizen of Chechen origin who arrived in France four years ago, sent an image on WhatsApp in which he was brandishing a knife, accompanied by the threat of «kill Jews within five days». He would have been in contact with a second minor, resident in the Paris area, and would have targeted possible places of worship. With this case, the number of minors prosecuted in 2025 already exceeds quota 20exceeding the previous year’s total.
Attacks, victims and foiled plans
The recovery of the phenomenon is also reflected in the budget of victims. In 2025 France was hit by three attacksagainst the two in 2024, the two in 2023 and the only episode recorded in 2022 and 2021. And if 2024 remains the only year (since 2015) without deaths, in 2025 two of the three attacks were lethal. The profile of the attackers is different from that of the young people involved in the plots: Mehdi B.perpetrator of the attempted slaughter in a supermarket, was 32 years old; Brahim A.responsible for the murder of Mulhouse, 37; Sabri B.accused of killing an Iraqi Christian in Lyon, 28. On a preventive level, in 2025 they were six attack plans foiledcompared to nine in 2024, a year marked by the holding of the Olympic Games. Three of these cases have been made public: the arrest in April, in the north of the country, of three young people in possession of instructions for making acetone peroxide (a powerful explosive) and a letter of allegiance to the Islamic State; the September arrest of a student 17 years old of Sarthe who was looking for accomplices and targets; the aforementioned blockade in Paris of the three girls.
The gray zone and propaganda
Added to these are numerous episodes which, although not classified as foiled plots, are arousing strong concern: one 13 years old intending to attack a Jewish or Shiite place of worship; a twenty-two years old who planned an attack with the use of a drone against the Eiffel Tower; a 17 year old French-Turkish ready to act with a knife; a 17 year old French-Algerian which was aimed at Notre Dameto a nightclub and to a concert by the rapper Jul; the arrest, in November, of the ex-partner of Salah Abdeslam; and two 16 year olds stopped on November 30th for a plan against the Jewish community.
Furthermore, attempts to reach the jihadist fronts abroad. In 2025 five people, including a French girl from 16 years oldwere arrested while trying to leave for Syria. In October, a young Afghan man was indicted for the cell financing attributable to the Islamic State in Khorasan. The picture is completed by dozens of procedures for apology for terrorism: a 21-year-old who praised the Islamic State on a video game forum; a man of Reunion who displayed an ISIS flag in a mosque on November 13; a resident in Savoy who declared he wanted to “kill infidels” while driving; an inhabitant ofAude who managed three TikTok profiles with content anti-Semites and pro-caliphateand many others. There propaganda vibrates from cell phone to cell phone and the influence that online magazines published by the Islamic State itself, such as Al-Nabathey exercise on rabid Muslims, too teenager.
The most disturbing fact
There is one gray area of violence of Islamist inspiration which, for legal reasons or the profile of the authors, does not fall within the competence of the Pnat but generates a strong public alarm. Some examples: in Marseille, on September 2, Abdelkader D. injured five people while shouting «Allahu Akbar». In February, in front of the Paris police station, a Sudanese or Somali man with psychiatric disorders injured two officers in an attempt to steal a weapon… Today, beyond89 percent of anti-terrorism proceedings in France concerns the jihadism (the violent far right, although showing signs of growth, remains residual). And the most disturbing fact remains the attraction it has on young people.
