Adem C., Youssef B. and Amza B. are all now around 22 years old. Their stories are also the same, stories France would prefer to forget. Each belongs to an extended family that left France for Syria to join the jihad, sometimes spanning three generations from grandparents to infants, all under the black flag of the Islamic State group (IS). All had become radicalized in France, some long before, others just prior to their departure. That was in 2014: Adem C. and Amza B. were 12 years old, Youssef B. not yet.
Now officially adults, these three castaways of history have become symbols. Since the collapse of IS in 2019, France had never wanted to repatriate them from Syria and Iraq, where they remain detained. But a recent decision by the Paris administrative court described this refusal as “arbitrary” and overturned it in December 2025. The French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs now has until February 13 to reconsider its stance. In other words – and for the first time – France must confront the issue of child soldiers among its own citizens.
The situation has become all the more urgent as the fate of Youssef B., Adem C. and Amza B. (their last names are withheld since all were minors at the time of the events) has grown increasingly uncertain in a region plunged into chaos. On January 18, Damascus retook control of the autonomous Kurdish enclave in northeastern Syria by force. This was where most IS fighters and their families had been incarcerated.