Just a few days before the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Islamist attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper, the French authorities have arrested an Algerian Tiktoker based in Brittany, who was using his TikTok account to invite his followers to launch attacks in France. The man was the subject of a deportation procedure.
Based in Brest, Brittany, and known on the network as Zazou Youcef, the man, followed by 400,000 subscribers, had for several days been calling on his followers to commit acts of violence on French soil against opponents of the Algerian regime.
An initial video, since deleted, was posted on his account on New Year’s Eve—a period always marked by waves of violence in areas with a high concentration of immigrant populations. He explicitly called for French people to be shot on January 1st: “We’re going to do to you what we did in the 90s. We’re going to shoot you. You want to go out on January 1st? Shoot them, we’ve got to use the gunpowder,” he explained on camera, in Arabic, while miming shooting with his hands.
His violent remarks mixed antisemitism with anti-French hatred: “The Algerian authorities know me. Shoot the French and we’ll bury them with the Jews,” he continued.
His calls for violence then escalated in a second video, which has not yet been deleted. “We are at war,” he declared as he filmed himself in the streets of Brest, before continuing with a barrage of insults and filthy language, once again calling for the use of force, while miming throat-cutting gestures. His videos, although in Arabic, went viral within hours on social networks, attracting the attention of the authorities.
Youcef A., aged 25, had already been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment in December 2023 for his involvement in the riots in the summer of 2023. With other accomplices, he had set fire to a tennis court and damaged sports equipment. The sentence was obviously without a committal order, as the man was at liberty and had not served his prison sentence. He was also subject to an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF) issued by the Finistère prefecture on April 18th, 2024.
On Friday, January 3rd, Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau announced his arrest on X, under the slogan “Don’t let anything get past us.”
The case of Zazou Youcef is far from isolated. Algerian anti-regime activist Chawki Benzehra has identified other problematic profiles, such as ‘Imadtintin’ who has just posted a video with 858k views calling for people to be burnt alive, killed, and raped on French soil.
It is to be hoped that the Algerian government will not stand in the way of Youcef’s permanent return to Algeria, and that the French authorities will take firm action against the other Algerian influencers currently being identified.
