Joining jihadist movements is not just about conviction or faith – it is also a matter of family, legacy and transitions. On Monday, September 15, before a specially composed criminal court in Paris, the trial of three women began, offering a glimpse into a tangled web of family ties that has ensnared all who entered − a web so strong that it has persisted across generations.
Three women − Christine Allain, 67, Jennyfer Clain, 34, and Mayalen Duhart, 42 − all face charges of joining the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria between 2014 and 2017. Two of them also stand accused of the moral and material abandonment of underage children.
The roots of this case stretch back to the late 1990s in the region around Toulouse (southern France), where the Clain family lived. The two Clain brothers, Fabien and Jean-Michel, came from a devout Catholic family and then converted to strict Islam under the influence of their elder sister Anne-Diana's Tunisian husband. Settling in the Mirail neighborhood of Toulouse, the brothers fell under the sway of Olivier Corel – a Syrian Islamist who had become a French citizen – and themselves became effective proselytizers, starting within their own family. Besides their elder sister, the brothers converted their wives, their half-sister and their mother.
