Armand R-M. became “interested” in Islam in 2014 and converted after meeting a jihadist, Maximilien T., in 2015 through a graffiti website, according to the Paris tribunal. At that time, he was a biology student and had plans to join the Islamic State group in the Iraq-Syria zone.
Following his arrest in 2016, a psychologist who had been following him estimated that “his need for guidance” had accelerated his radicalization, with “the Islamic State providing him with guiding criteria for his way of life.” Shortly after being arrested, he stated, “I radicalized and then auto-deradicalized.” “I am no longer a Muslim but I still take an interest in what is happening there,” he said. However, for the tribunal, this deradicalization process appears “fragile.” Moreover, when faced with his contradictions, he admitted in 2016 to still having “dark thoughts” – he did not dislike the Nice attack.
Since the spring-summer of 2022, this highly impressionable and unstable individual has once again raised concerns, according to a security source cited by AFP. After his arrest on Saturday night, he told the police that “he was upset about what was happening in Gaza, that France would be complicit in what Israel was doing. He said he was tired of seeing Muslims die, both in Afghanistan and Palestine,” the Interior Minister said. The recent news may have caused him to decompensate, according to the security source.
