On 4 March this year, the class of 2021 attended a conference on radicalisation. Why train future judges and prosecutors on this subject and the fight against terrorism? Are they likely to be confronted with these issues when they leave the School?

Samuel Lainé (in charge of initial training, recruitment and research): "France first passed anti-terrorist laws in 1986, and has chosen to make anti-terrorist justice one of the main arms of the fight against these phenomena. But originally, this was a very specialised branch of the justice system, the reserve of the 14th section of the Paris prosecutor's office (which became the '"C1" in 2004 until the creation of the National Anti-terrorism Prosecution Service (PNAT) in 2019) and a few investigating judges. The 2015 terrorist attacks, and even more so the Nice and Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray attacks, tipped this specialist area of justice into the mainstream ordinary law system.
A judge or prosecutor, wherever they are based, can now be confronted with a terrorist attack and therefore have to manage the beginning of the investigations, before the PNAT takes over. They might also be confronted with a case of incitement to terrorism or a concerning missing persons case that reaches the conclusion that the person has left to join a jihadist group, with child safeguarding cases when a radicalised parent has taken a child out of the country, sentence enforcement issues concerning the management of radicalised prisoners, etc.
As a result, even if it is not the ENM 's job to provide specialist training as part of judges and prosecutors' initial training, it is still necessary for trainees to acquire, ready for their first positions as judges or prosecutors, a minimum of reflexes and keys to understanding the phenomena of radicalisation and terrorism, the types of cases in which they are likely to arise, the legal classifications and issues around jurisdiction, the exceptional procedural regimes in criminal matters, etc. And above all they need to know where they can find the relevant information and who the resource persons are in the courts.
Finally, the teaching they receive on international mutual legal assistance is necessary to deal with these subjects, since terrorism cases usually involve international judicial and also police cooperation."

Who else does the ENM provide with training on radicalisation and the judicial response to terrorism?

Élie Renard (in charge of in-service training, specialist professional and international training): ): "All French judges and prosecutors have access to broad-based in-service training courses that give them the tools to deal with all the issues relating to radicalisation or the judicial response to terrorism.
For those who wish to specialise, the ENM offers an an in-depth 20-day course on the fight against terrorism which not only provides a grasp of the state of the terrorist threat and an understanding of the judicial response, but also addresses notions such as the fight against violent radicalisation or the judicial handling of intelligence.
Finally, for judges and prosecutors who are already specialised, an advanced counter-terrorism programme (PACT) was created in 2018 as part of a government counter-terrorism action plan. This course focuses on a social and geopolitical contextualisation of terrorism, the use of the latest technologies, international mutual legal assistance and cooperation.

The ENM also runs courses designed for foreign judges and prosecutors, but which are also open to French judges and prosecutors, with the aim of encouraging international cooperation, and also comparing the methods of combating terrorism in different countries, in particular within the European Union, so that judges and prosecutors can situate their actions in a European context.
The treatment of victims is an important feature of these courses, with in particular the example of the European VICTI project on the place of victims in "non-standard" criminal proceedings.

In another important development, in 2021 ENM was entrusted with the training of judicial experts in the specialities of "clinical forensic medicine – bodily injury and sequelae of trauma", "adult psychiatry" and “child psychiatry” who have shown an interest in the medical examination of terrorism victims. Assessing the damage suffered by terrorism victims requires particular technical skills: specific knowledge is required, but there are also aspects relating to know-how and soft skills on which the ENM has based the training it has devised for this new audience in partnership with the Court responsible for the Compensation of the Victims of Terrorism (JIVAT), the Guarantee Fund for Victims of Terrorist Acts and Other Offences (FGTI), the Inter-Ministerial Delegate for Victim Support (DIAV) and the National Bar Council (CNB). It is, furthermore, the first time that the ENM has trained judicial experts."

How does the training provided by the ENM contribute to better coordination between judges and prosecutors and the other actors involved in the prevention of radicalisation and counter-terrorism?

Samuel Lainé :"Knowing who the resource persons are in the courts – the judges and prosecutors with special responsibility for terrorism, the assistants specialised in the fight against radicalisation – is obviously essential. But being familiar with the roles of the different other actors involved is also fundamental, since inter-professional cooperation is the crux of the judicial response to terrorism, involving investigators, intelligence and the homeland security forces in particular. On the radicalisation side, the youth workers in the Judicial juvenile protection service (PJJ) have an important role to play, and the Prefectures are also involved in this aspect.
During the initial training of future judges and prosecutors, different meetings and talks are organised to address the work of these other actors. For example, recently a judge came in with an inter-regional prison service director who had been the governor of a remand centre to talk about the detection of radicalisation processes and how they are dealt with, in prisons in particular, with the prison intelligence service. Groups of trainees have also interviewed police officers from the Counterterrorism Coordination Unit (UCLAT) and reported back to the rest of their year group. Others are currently on external placements with the Ministry for the Interior, the Ministry for Defence, Interpol, Prefectures. In addition, during their international placements, they sometimes have the opportunity to study foreign counter-terrorism methods."

Élie Renard : "A training session provides an ideal setting to allow different actors involved in counter-terrorism to exchange on their practices. A good understanding of the tasks, practices and constraints of other professions makes it easier to take them into account in one's own professional practice and it helps to raise the quality of collective action.
That is why inter-professional and inter-ministerial cooperation are important features of the training delivered on by the ENM on terrorism. The advanced counter-terrorism programme (PACT) is the perfect illustration of this: it brings together judges and prosecutors, investigators and prison service staff who all share the same aspiration: decompartmentalisation. This desire to train all the actors involved in counter-terrorism together is also illustrated with the International Counter-Terrorism Academy (AILCT) inaugurated in June 2021 in Abidjan, which is an international inter-ministerial project that the ENM had been working on since 2018."

Does the School have plans for more training courses on terrorism and radicalisation? What are the issues that are central to the ENM's thinking on these topics?

Samuel Lainé : "In terms of future training, we would like the trainee judges and prosecutors to be able to benefit, once it has finished, from the different views of the all those involved in the historic trial on the 2015 terror attacks, but also those of the trainee judges and prosecutors who attended parts of the trial thanks to discussions between the Paris Court of Appeal and the ENM.
In terms of issues, what we need to do today is constantly adapt our offer to the developments in the ever-moving world around these phenomena. The monitoring work done by the Research and Documentation Department on the changes in the legislation on these issues should also help us.
We must also give our trainees a better knowledge of the structures which provide the framework for the relations that are formed between the different actors in the judicial world, the homeland security forces and the intelligence services.
Finally, we must also make sure that we integrate the latest legislative developments in our courses on international cooperation in criminal matters, especially within the European Union, as there are regularly new developments, in particular in relation to convicted criminals."

Élie Renard : : "In terms of training, the main issues are those I have mentioned throughout this interview: adaptation to the level of specialisation of the audience trained, decompartmentalisation between the different actors, the treatment of victims and issues around cooperation within the European area. In this respect, I am thinking particularly about issues like the gathering of electronic evidence or the taking into account of information from theatres of operations.
In addition, our offer must continue to encourage collective reflection on the normative framework, changes in the law and case law developments, the issues relating to the fight against terrorism and the rule of law, including in a comparative approach (cf. the conference on the European project, "The Judicial response to terrorism in the light of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights" held in 2018).
There is also, on all these themes, a real need for interdisciplinary knowledge, in particular to get a good grasp of the regional geopolitical stakes."

Radicalisation and terrorism: Important subjects for the ENM