Almost three years to the day after the murder of history teacher Samuel Paty by a Chechen Islamist, the murder of French teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras on Friday, October 13th, in similar circumstances, has revealed a whole chain of culpable public responsibilities, against a backdrop of migratory ideology and ideological blindness.
As soon as the terrible news of the murder of teacher Dominique Bernard in front of his pupils by a twenty-year-old man of Chechen origin, Mohammed Mogushkov, came to light, revelations followed one after another about the profile of the murderer and his background. Many whistleblowers and journalists have established with certainty that the man should never have crossed the teacher’s path and that the complicity of the state apparatus and migrant defence associations played a full part in the path that led him to commit his crime.
The origins of the tragedy date back to 2008, when the Mogushkov family arrived in France from Ingushetia, a republic in the Caucasus region of Russia. Mohammed Mogushkov, born in 2003, was five years old at the time. The Mogushkovs were in an irregular situation and were initially accommodated in Brittany in hotels made available to refugees. In 2014, the family was due to be deported, but the deportation was finally abandoned thanks to massive political and community pressure.
Documents from the time are now resurfacing on the web. A cohort of migrant rights associations mobilised to allow the Mogushkovs to stay in France, including MRAP (Mouvement contre le Racisme et l’Amitié entre les Peuples), Cimade, and RESF (Réseau Education Sans Frontières), supported by left-wing parties—ecologists and the Front de Gauche, forerunner of La France Insoumise. With success: the expulsion was cancelled, thanks to a decision by the local prefect, validated at the highest level by the cabinet of the then Minister of the Interior, Manuel Valls.
At the time, the French Communist Party issued a statement in defence of the Mogushkovs, who they saw as victims of the authoritarianism of Putin’s regime, justifying their departure from Russia: “How can we fail to express our deepest reservations about a policy that sends an entire family back to the republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia, where the violence continues and respect for human rights is far from President Putin’s primary concern?”
After this episode of failed expulsion, the Mogushkov family moved to Arras. The father, on his own, ended up being deported and sent back to Russia in 2018 on suspicion of domestic violence. The remaining family members in France continued to be monitored by the French authorities, and the children—of whom there were now five—were known to have been radicalised. Europe 1 recalls the siblings’ record. The Arras terrorist, Mohammed Mogushkov, aged 20, had been on the S list (for radicalised people) for 12 days and was under physical surveillance by the DGSI (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure). The eldest of the siblings, Movsar, who was also on the S list, has been in prison since 2019 for having been involved in a planned attack on the Élysée Palace. Lastly, the younger brother was also on the S list for radicalisation.
In 2021, Mogushkov’s application for asylum was rejected, as was his appeal. The DGSI had been monitoring him, listening in on his conversations, and he had even been checked the day before he was due to act.
The main problem is that he was able to stay in France for so long without being really worried. With such a track record, he and his family should have been returned to Russia a long time ago, especially as in February this year Mohammed Mogushkov was taken into custody for acts of domestic violence. The question of his deportation then arose, but the authorities decided against it by virtue of a provision of French law that stipulates that deportation cannot take place if the person concerned entered French territory before the age of 13, which is the case. Yet expulsion remains possible in cases of serious and proven offences, such as terrorism or incitement to hatred. Unfortunately, it took Mogushkov’s actions for him to be deemed—at last—deportable.
As journalist Paul Sugy of Le Figaro puts it, this case is “a summary of the flaws in French immigration policy.” Today, declarations are multiplying, calling for firmness and vigilance, but in three years, nothing has changed, as denounced by personalities from all sides, such as Marion Maréchal and Ségolène Royal, a former Socialist minister:
We’re told that it’s because there’s no law that radicalised S files can’t be deported? So three years after the murder of Samuel Paty, this government hasn’t found a few minutes to draw up a 49.3 to prevent terrorism, but it has subjected the country to several months of economic and social chaos.
Both Marion Maréchal and Marine Le Pen are calling for the resignation of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, whereas former Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who was in government when it came to keeping the Mogushkovs in France, is now calling for the net to be “tightened”—a bit too late.
The logic of left-wing associations has not been called into question either, as shown by the press release from the CNT-SO Education and Research teachers’ union, which considers that the attack in Arras is a consequence of Islamophobia and the controversy over the abaya, described as a “sterile controversy with racist overtones,” to which we must respond with “solidarity.” It was this solidarity that led to the Mogushkovs being welcomed, with the result that we now know.
The terrible irony is that this family was fleeing the Russian regime, which at the time was at war with the Chechen Muslim terrorists who are now to be found in Western Europe.
Today, reveals the weekly Marianne, the DGSI is particularly concerned about a “new generation of Chechens”—the descendants of refugee families from the wars of the 1990s and 2000s. The French counter-terrorism agency estimates that there are more than 150 North Caucasians involved in networks “likely to fuel the terrorist threat.”
For the moment, the political response has been slow in coming. Pending the examination of a new law on immigration, the government is promising us training in “benevolence, tolerance, and empathy.” That’s reassuring.
Arras Murder: The Tragic Consequences of Failed Immigration Policy
A woman pays tribute at Heroes Square in Arras, north of France, to French teacher Dominique Bernard, who died in a knife attack on October 13.
Almost three years to the day after the murder of history teacher Samuel Paty by a Chechen Islamist, the murder of French teacher Dominique Bernard in Arras on Friday, October 13th, in similar circumstances, has revealed a whole chain of culpable public responsibilities, against a backdrop of migratory ideology and ideological blindness.
As soon as the terrible news of the murder of teacher Dominique Bernard in front of his pupils by a twenty-year-old man of Chechen origin, Mohammed Mogushkov, came to light, revelations followed one after another about the profile of the murderer and his background. Many whistleblowers and journalists have established with certainty that the man should never have crossed the teacher’s path and that the complicity of the state apparatus and migrant defence associations played a full part in the path that led him to commit his crime.
The origins of the tragedy date back to 2008, when the Mogushkov family arrived in France from Ingushetia, a republic in the Caucasus region of Russia. Mohammed Mogushkov, born in 2003, was five years old at the time. The Mogushkovs were in an irregular situation and were initially accommodated in Brittany in hotels made available to refugees. In 2014, the family was due to be deported, but the deportation was finally abandoned thanks to massive political and community pressure.
Documents from the time are now resurfacing on the web. A cohort of migrant rights associations mobilised to allow the Mogushkovs to stay in France, including MRAP (Mouvement contre le Racisme et l’Amitié entre les Peuples), Cimade, and RESF (Réseau Education Sans Frontières), supported by left-wing parties—ecologists and the Front de Gauche, forerunner of La France Insoumise. With success: the expulsion was cancelled, thanks to a decision by the local prefect, validated at the highest level by the cabinet of the then Minister of the Interior, Manuel Valls.
At the time, the French Communist Party issued a statement in defence of the Mogushkovs, who they saw as victims of the authoritarianism of Putin’s regime, justifying their departure from Russia: “How can we fail to express our deepest reservations about a policy that sends an entire family back to the republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia, where the violence continues and respect for human rights is far from President Putin’s primary concern?”
After this episode of failed expulsion, the Mogushkov family moved to Arras. The father, on his own, ended up being deported and sent back to Russia in 2018 on suspicion of domestic violence. The remaining family members in France continued to be monitored by the French authorities, and the children—of whom there were now five—were known to have been radicalised. Europe 1 recalls the siblings’ record. The Arras terrorist, Mohammed Mogushkov, aged 20, had been on the S list (for radicalised people) for 12 days and was under physical surveillance by the DGSI (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure). The eldest of the siblings, Movsar, who was also on the S list, has been in prison since 2019 for having been involved in a planned attack on the Élysée Palace. Lastly, the younger brother was also on the S list for radicalisation.
In 2021, Mogushkov’s application for asylum was rejected, as was his appeal. The DGSI had been monitoring him, listening in on his conversations, and he had even been checked the day before he was due to act.
The main problem is that he was able to stay in France for so long without being really worried. With such a track record, he and his family should have been returned to Russia a long time ago, especially as in February this year Mohammed Mogushkov was taken into custody for acts of domestic violence. The question of his deportation then arose, but the authorities decided against it by virtue of a provision of French law that stipulates that deportation cannot take place if the person concerned entered French territory before the age of 13, which is the case. Yet expulsion remains possible in cases of serious and proven offences, such as terrorism or incitement to hatred. Unfortunately, it took Mogushkov’s actions for him to be deemed—at last—deportable.
As journalist Paul Sugy of Le Figaro puts it, this case is “a summary of the flaws in French immigration policy.” Today, declarations are multiplying, calling for firmness and vigilance, but in three years, nothing has changed, as denounced by personalities from all sides, such as Marion Maréchal and Ségolène Royal, a former Socialist minister:
Both Marion Maréchal and Marine Le Pen are calling for the resignation of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, whereas former Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who was in government when it came to keeping the Mogushkovs in France, is now calling for the net to be “tightened”—a bit too late.
The logic of left-wing associations has not been called into question either, as shown by the press release from the CNT-SO Education and Research teachers’ union, which considers that the attack in Arras is a consequence of Islamophobia and the controversy over the abaya, described as a “sterile controversy with racist overtones,” to which we must respond with “solidarity.” It was this solidarity that led to the Mogushkovs being welcomed, with the result that we now know.
The terrible irony is that this family was fleeing the Russian regime, which at the time was at war with the Chechen Muslim terrorists who are now to be found in Western Europe.
Today, reveals the weekly Marianne, the DGSI is particularly concerned about a “new generation of Chechens”—the descendants of refugee families from the wars of the 1990s and 2000s. The French counter-terrorism agency estimates that there are more than 150 North Caucasians involved in networks “likely to fuel the terrorist threat.”
For the moment, the political response has been slow in coming. Pending the examination of a new law on immigration, the government is promising us training in “benevolence, tolerance, and empathy.” That’s reassuring.
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