When the “ Lone Wolf ” Hid the Herd : Deconstructing a Security Myth
Royalists versus Képéliens
The publication of Hugo Micheron ’ s book in January 2020 is part of the
quarrel among humanities researchers over the interpretation of jihadism . Indeed , this publication has revived the conceptual war within the academic world , between the sociological trend defended by Olivier Roy ( with François Burgat and Farhad Khosrokhavar ) and the politico-religious trend of the Arabist Gilles Kepel and his students , Bernard Rougier and Hugo Micheron . This quarrel has been summarized in two formulas by the media . Olivier Roy defends the idea that French jihadists represent the Islamization of radicality : young people from the suburbs have become jihadists through hatred of society . Conversely , Gilles Kepel defends that of the radicalization of Islam : within Islam , a radical religious current was born , having set up an imaginary community that gives religious meaning to the lives of young uprooted suburbanites with no moral landmarks .
Scholars close to Olivier Roy are accused by the Gilles Kepel camp of refusing to see the religious aspects of French jihadism . Olivier Roy ’ s university clan blames Gilles Kepel and his students for neglecting the economic and social aspects that were at the source of the jihadist commitment : the precariousness of young people , the relegation of the suburbs , the family destructuring , the absence of social rules , or the contradictions between them ( anomie , Emile Durkheim ’ s notion ). The Képéliens ignore the social conditions that have allowed the jihadist phenomenon to flourish . According to Farhad Khosrokhavar , “ the thesis of the religious whole is a violence to the social and thus presents a falsely transparent image of a reality in which the religious enters into symbiosis with other determinants .” 1 Moreover , Olivier Roy rejects the postulate of continuity between Salafism and terrorism . He does not admit that “ the Salafist incubation from ‘ enclaves ’ on French territory would mechanically produce ( which ) would produce terrorism .” For him , the movement is carried above all by “ a nihilist vision fascinated by death ,” in which the religious aspect intervenes little . “ The Abdeslam had a bistro where they sold Jupiler beer and hashish .” He does not believe at all in the concept of Takiyah ( concealment ), according to which the jihadist would have a way of life voluntarily contradicting his convictions in order to conceal his intentions .
For Farhad Khosrokhavar , who belongs to Olivier Roy ’ s clan , Gilles Kepel ’ s thesis can only propose to “ reconquer the lost territories [ of the Republic ] without asking the question of the social conditions of the emergence of these phenomena .” For this researcher , by amalgamating Wahhabism , Salafism , Tabligh , the Muslim Brotherhood , and jihadism and by giving it a hegemonic dimension , Kepelian researchers would be making a serious methodological error by reducing a com-
1 Jérôme Ferret et Fahrad Khosrokhavar , “ La fausse alternative : la radicalisation de l ’ islam ou l ’ islamisation de la radicalité ,” Tribune , 13 février 2020 , Sovhypothèses . org / 2345 .
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