Since September 11th 2001, there have been close to 150 Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe. But in order to understand the phenomenon of jihadism, one has to look beyond the attacks themselves. The periods of high tide, justifiably, grab public and media attention. But we need to focus on jihadist networks at periods of low tide in order to understand their evolution and develop mechanisms to protect democracies from the next attack. This is precisely what Hugo Micheron, Professor at Sciences Po, did in his latest book, La colère et l’oubli – Les démocraties face au jihadisme européen (“Wrath and Forgetting – Democracies and European Jihadism”). What is the ideology that drives jihadist movements in Europe? What is their origin? Why did they root themselves in European countries? And how does technology help them spread their message? These are some of the questions Hugo Micheron explores in his book, and some of the issues we will be discussing with him today, allowing us to go beyond the headlines and, as he says, watch the entire movie, subtitles included.
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Hugo Micheron is an internationally renowned expert of jihadism. Professor at Sciences Po, he was a researcher for 2 years at Princeton University. Hugo Micheron’s PhD, which he earned at Ecole Normale Supérieure, is the result of in-depth surveys in French and Belgian neighborhoods affected by jihadist recruitment. For his work, Micheron conducted 80 interviews with convicted “returnees” from ISIS who were incarcerated in French prisons. His book, Wrath and Forgetting, received the prestigious Prix Femina last year. Micheron also directed the widely-watched documentary, Jihad On Europe and is a frequent contributor on French television and radio.
Credits
Host: Dr. Emmanuel Kattan
Editor and Producer: Monica Beatrice Hunter-Hart
Producer: Georgia O’Neil