Before the investigators of the criminal brigade, he presented himself as a "mujahideen having carried out an act of resistance". But in the flood of jihadists who took action in France, his profile is surprising. Farid Ikken, an Algerian doctoral student and a 43-year-old former journalist, full of diplomas, is on trial from Wednesday by the Paris Special Assize Court for "attempted terrorist killings" on police officials. A trial scheduled for two days but which could be postponed due to the lawyers' strike.
On June 6, 2017, around 4:20 p.m., after an erratic journey of several hours in the capital, Farid Ikken attacked a police patrol posted on the forecourt of Notre-Dame. Carrier of two knives with serrated blade of 15 and 7 centimeters, he brandishes a hammer and shouts: "It's for Syria!" One of the three peacekeepers was injured in the back of the head.
Described as "agitated and threatening" by a witness, the assailant continues to make reels with his tool. A police officer then opens fire, imitated by his colleague. The next day, the forty-something with angular features is placed in police custody at the hospital. "It was an attack of extreme violence, believes Me Thibault de Montbrial, lawyer for one of the officials. Without my client's excellent reaction, the first police officer targeted would have had a blown head. ”
"Flawless adherence to the ideology of ISIS"
The investigation brought to light the confusing profile of Farid Ikken, whose relatives were amazed to learn of radicalization. This former journalist with a clean record, described as "reserved, isolated, sometimes depressed", told the police that he wanted to draw attention to "the incredible violence that the French army is committing in Iraq and Syria". But he refutes having intended to kill.
In their order, the examining magistrates point to its "flawless adherence to the theses and ideology of the Islamic State" (IS). A few hours before the attack, Farid Ikken claimed in a video that he belonged to the terrorist group. "I am about to carry out an operation, my brother, to reduce the pressure on my brothers to the caliphate," he wrote on Telegram encrypted messaging.
It is difficult to date its shift towards this deadly ideology, which Ikken describes as "something positive". The journey of this youngest of a Kabyle family of 11 children is punctuated by professional disappointments. A psychologist evokes in an expert report an "indefinite succession of university studies at a distance [...] from a personal and family life".
Born in Béjaïa, Algeria, he studied languages there and then moved to Sweden in 2001. He married in 2004 but quickly divorced. Two years later, Farid Ikken began studying journalism. A master's graduate, but tired of odd jobs, he returned to Algeria in 2011, where he launched his site, Bejaïa today, and worked for the prestigious daily El Watan. His former colleagues keep the memory of an "open-minded", "cultured" man, showing a certain "disgust for terrorism and violence". Farid Ikken, he goes back to his religious commitment to 2011, in the name of "a spiritual quest".
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Two years later, his career stagnated and the student enrolled in a doctorate in communication sciences in Metz, in Lorraine. He spent two years there before following his thesis director in Paris. To investigators, the latter described him as "intelligent and fervent defender of Western democracy". But Farid Ikken feels very isolated and complains to his teacher. His brother, who lives in Nantes, does not know any friend and emphasizes his depressive tendency.
"A freak of lead because of its social isolation"
Farid Ikken gets bogged down. In 2016, his teachers worried about the “trampling” of his thesis. Could this isolation have worked towards its radicalization? "It's so incomprehensible ... This attitude is diametrically opposed to the ideals that I know of him," said his professor in front of the police. A cousin perceives him, "a freak of lead due to his social isolation".
In the camera of his studio in Cergy (Val-d'Oise), Farid Ikken embraces the theses of radical Islam. During the search, the investigators discovered an amateur magazine entitled "The Soldier of the Caliphate in the Land of the Franks", of which Ikken is suspected of being the author, as well as propaganda documents. Before the magistrates, the doctoral student refutes being a terrorist and defines himself as "a resistance fighter and a prisoner of conscience".
Favoring the establishment of the Daesh caliphate, he declared that he wanted to "attract public opinion to the massacre of [his] little brothers and sisters in Syria and Iraq", disparaging the accounts made by "the classical media". He delivers a revealing element: while writing a thesis, he thought of joining the Iraqi-Syrian zone to teach there. An expert psychologist perceives in him an "almost exclusive interest in religion […] against the backdrop of depression and loneliness".
Since the start of his detention, Farid Ikken, whose lawyers Mes Aidel and Sbidian did not wish to speak, has always been as lonely. Incarcerated in Fleury-Mérogis then Nantes, he refuses to be examined by a female doctor and to be evaluated in the neighborhoods of radicalization.