necropolitics: not gonna make no more ghetto muslims, no, no, no....,

theweek |  Chérif Kouachi was born in 1980 in Paris' diverse 10th arrondissement, which stretches from the Place de la République to the Gare du Nord. He was one of five children of Algerian immigrant parents. A source who knew Chérif Kouachi when he was arrested on his way to catch the flight to Damascus in 2005 said, "He was abandoned very young; it's not clear if his parents couldn't look after the children or if his parents died. But he was put in care homes early — before the age of 10." The care homes were far from Paris, and his childhood was described as chaotic.

When he reached 18, he returned to the northeast of Paris with his elder brother. He had a sports education qualification but a poor school record and no other family support. When he became involved in the Buttes-Chaumont group of friends, he was back in Paris but living precariously.

"He was living almost like a homeless person, staying with someone, but it was more of a mattress on the floor than a real home," the source said. "He was very clearly marginalized. He was immature, just out of adolescence. He wasn't vindictive…He went to the mosque, but went clubbing, made rap music, smoked hash, drank. He wasn't a hermit."

It seemed at the time that Benyettou, the young guru figure by whom Kouachi was enthralled, used methods similar to those of a sect. "He made him feel important; he listened to him, recognized him as an individual…Chérif Kouachi was fragile, looking for a family…He didn't have a family he could turn to for support," the source said.

When he was arrested over the attempted flight to Syria and Iraq, Kouachi described himself to investigators as a "ghetto Muslim," according to Le Monde. "Before, I was a delinquent. But after, I felt great. I didn't even imagine that I could die," he told the court. A French TV documentary on radicalized youth showed footage of him rapping. "It's written in the texts that it's good to die as a martyr," he said.

The Buttes-Chaumont group's jihadi aspirations were directly linked to the second Iraq War, in 2003. They would sit in apartments watching footage of the U.S.-led invasion. "Everything I saw on TV, the torture in Abu Ghraib prison, all that, that's what motivated me," one of Kouachi's friends later said at trial.

But under Jacques Chirac, France had refused to intervene in the Iraq War, and the young cell's stance wasn't really a movement against the French state. It was more a rage directed against the U.S. Some of the group stated that jihad wasn't done in France. The focal point was fighting a foreign invader in Iraq.