INTERVIEW – The portraits of the perpetrators of attacks often reveal psychological imbalances. The question of the attractiveness of this mode of action in unstable people arises.
After the attacks comes the time for analyzes. It is then that we discover that the author was mentally unbalanced, socially poorly integrated, that he was a lost, a rascal, a small strike in the liabilities of a petty delinquent, a human being in need of identity and in quest for recognition whatever it may be …
It is impossible to paint a typical profile of the perpetrators of the attacks that have struck France in recent months and Germany in recent days. It is even less relevant, and acceptable, to justify these acts by alleged psychiatric pathologies. However, the portraits drawn over time raise questions: does the terrorist cause exert an attraction among those who present psychological weaknesses, and who could, in other circumstances, have opted for a more “banal” mode of extreme action – a solitary suicide, a “classic” murder…? We put these questions to Daniel Zagury, psychiatrist expert with the courts.
Do the speech and the terrorist act exert an increased attractiveness with certain psychologically unstable people?
Daniel Zagury: It is absurd to seek to psychiatry the current phenomenon of terrorism. There are no types of terrorist, no mapping to establish. If we look at the different profiles of perpetrators of attacks in France, we see on the one hand some proven mental patients, who take action in response to their delirium, but they are extremely rare. On the other hand, we have normal subjects, well balanced, with a continuity of their sense of identity, but here too, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
In between, we have everything else. They are troubled, fragile, deficient personalities; drug addicts, borderline, pre-psychotics, petty delinquents … They are lost in the early morning who seize a vaguely ideological cause, who carry out exhortations launched to the cantonade by Daesh – which only has to wait for the first failure of existence does the job and then takes the stake. Throughout history, generally speaking, those who were sent as cannon fodder were not the elite; here, it is the base of Daesh, failures who appropriate a cause that will make them “heroes”.
Daniel Zagury, psychiatrist expert: ” What dominates among the profiles are fragile and troubled personalities without mental pathology, who also feel a hatred of the other. “
In another context, could these people have opted for a more classic mode of action – murder, suicide…?
Daniel Zagury: It’s possible. Terrorism, Daesh’s discourse, media and political coverage of events, all of this allows a certain number of subjects to have an “exemplary model of misconduct”, a term used in anthropology. Basically, society offers depressed people, failures who rehash their hatred and their feeling of a failed existence, a way out ” ready made », All ready to use. In his head, the author of the terrorist act wonders: will I kill myself and die all alone in my corner, or perform an act that will make me someone famous, a hero? grandiose that will make history?
Several elements explain the attractiveness of this “ready-to-use” issue. First, there is mimicry, what are called “criminal modes”: a man pushes someone in the metro and two weeks later, another similar case occurs. Then there is the culture broth, the failure of the integration of the different populations, the wars in Iraq and Syria and the orders uttered by Daesh, but here we are entering more societal and political analyzes.
How to fight against the attractiveness of “terrorist suicide” for vulnerable people?
Daniel Zagury: Politicians and the media have a way to act, a language to adopt. We must stop posting photos of terrorists everywhere because this contributes to their deadly glory, to their consecration, which echoes their megalomania. Who has their photo on all the kiosks across the country, apart from the stars? With each attack, it becomes ridiculous – live information, special editions, experts called manu militari to comment …
In addition, certain words should be banned. We must stop talking about a meticulously prepared “operation”. They shot in the crowd, rushed with a truck on women and children, it is not an “operation” … The term makes the act sophisticated, it enhances it. Unintentionally, the media fall into traps that we must think about to avoid them.
Daniel Zagury : ” People find it difficult to understand that such terrible misfortunes are perpetrated by very small individuals, without interest. The immense damage is caused by ridiculous individuals …“
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