The Returned

Award-winning French journalist, David Thomson, illustrates a series of case studies that offer individual perspectives focused on why French men and women choose to depart for war-torn regions of Syria. A snapshot is offered of the varying trajectories, detailing how support for ISIS or al-Qaeda related factions has led to active engagement, abandoning life in France in order to fight or reside in Syria, by men whose boring mundane existences lead to cravings for adventure and excitement, morphing disturbingly from video games into reality, alongside women who harbour distorted visions of marriage and family life in a dystopian apparition, seeking purity while submerged in iniquity. Conservative estimates suggest over 1000 French citizens have departed for Syria since 2012, often as families, while by 2016 an estimated 700 remained, half of whom were woman along with over 400 children, with around a third born in ISIS/al-Qaeda related enclaves and rendered effectively stateless.