French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced that the government has plans to deport Russian nationals deemed to be "dangerous" – mostly Chechens. "The president of the Republic has given me his assent to resume discussions with Russia in this area," Darmanin has repeatedly said following the murder of literature teacher Dominique Bernard on October 13 in Arras, by a young, radicalized Russian man, Mohammed Mogouchkov, originally from Ingushetia.
The Interior Ministry is specifically targeting 60 undocumented Russians residing in France, who are registered in the Alert Processing Register for the Prevention of Radicalization of a Terrorist Nature (FSPRT). According to the Interior Ministry, 40 of them are in prison, nine are facing litigation and "11 could be deported" right now.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the government has stopped deporting people to Russia, due to the suspension of air connections and the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Paris and Moscow. The Arras attack seems to have nullified this freeze. The interior ministry said that "a list [of people to be deported] has been transmitted" to the Russian authorities, with the aim of obtaining consular laissez-passers, the exceptional travel permits required to deport an individual. Recently, a number of Russians have already been placed in administrative detention centers, with the intention of deporting them. "The Russians are quite happy to take back the Chechens," said a member of the minister's entourage, satisfied.
It is a situation that worries Pascale Chaudot, president of Comité Tchétchénie (Chechnya Committee), an NGO founded by intellectuals and activists: "It reminds us what happened at the time of Samuel Paty's murder [on October 16, 2020, by a young Chechen]. There were a number of deportations in a sort of desire to show that something could be done in the face of a horrific act. The end was dramatic for some of them: One young man died while in detention in Russia, and others were imprisoned and tortured. Unfortunately, this did not prevent the horror of Arras. We fear for people who may be in danger in Russia."
On December 11, 2020, Daud Muradov – an asylum seeker who had never been convicted in France – was deported to Russia on suspicions of having links to the Islamic State organization. He was incarcerated in Grozny prison, where he died on February 6, 2022 – officially of cardiac arrest, according to the French branch of the human rights NGO Memorial. In 2021 and 2022, France was condemned four times by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for deporting or intending to deport Chechen nationals, which violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights that prohibits states from practicing torture, or subjecting a person under their jurisdiction to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In each case, the Court found that France had failed to adequately assess the risks that would be incurred by an individual if they were deported.
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