In the space of a few seconds, the future of his professional career changed. On July 11th, aeronautical technician 'Yassine' – not his real name - received a registered letter from the Paris police authority or 'prefecture' at his home in Verrières-le-Buisson in Paris's southern suburbs. Reading it, this 40-year-old Frenchman, who is originally from Casablanca, Morocco, learned that his security clearance for accessing Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle Airport had been revoked for two months.
This clearance is essential for his daily work: for the past thirteen years Yassine has been employed by airline Air France. And since 2016, he has been responsible for maintaining aircraft cabins, working in rotating shifts, and cannot enter the restricted areas of the airport without proper clearance.
To justify his temporary suspension, the prefecture cited in its decision the “high level of a terrorist threat” during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It also stated that Yassine's “morality and behaviour” did not provide the “required guarantees in terms of state security”. The reason? He allegedly moved in an “environment made up of individuals linked to the radical Islamist movement” and had shown “sympathy for an organisation dissolved for Islamist propaganda”.
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The words left Yassine incredulous. “I just couldn't believe it, to the extent that I still went to work on the first day of the ban. I only realised it was real when they blocked my access,” he says.
Just a few weeks earlier, on February 23rd, following an administrative investigation, his clearance had been renewed for the third time since 2016. However, under the pretext of Olympic security, this same investigation was now being cited by the police prefecture to justify the temporary suspension of his badge.
“I obey the law, I've had no dealings with the police… When I get a parking fine, I pay it straight away. I do everything by the book, and yet I’m punished without being judged: in the space of a day, I was no longer able to work,” Yassine says.
Unclear reasons
Faced with this situation, Yassine took the remaining three weeks of his annual leave. His priority was to continue receiving his €2,800 monthly salary, which is essential for paying his rent and bills. He has now abandoned plans for a winter holiday with his wife and their three children. For the remainder of the suspension period he decided to take unpaid leave. Meanwhile, on July 25th, his lawyer submitted an urgent application to the administrative courts for an injunction to suspend the Paris police prefecture's decision.
It was only minutes before the hearing on Wednesday August 14th at the Montreuil Administrative Court in the Paris suburbs that Yassine discovered the accusations against him, when he was able to read the defence brief from the Paris police prefecture. An anonymous note about him from the intelligence services states - according to the court's ruling – that he first came to their attention back in 2015, when he was suspected of acts of sabotage. There was then a second report on him, dated April 2022, alleging that he was caught by colleagues praying at his workplace. “I only occasionally go to the mosque, I don’t even pray at home, so I certainly don’t pray at work,” says Yassine, a keen footballer and youth coach at a sports club.
You can't view someone as a threat just because they donated to the BarakaCity association.
During the hearing his lawyer, Marion Ogier, focused on the ambiguity of some of the arguments put forward by the police prefecture, particularly the claim that he mixed in an environment linked to the Islamic movement. “He's being criticised for his supposed proximity to people within his professional sphere, which he did not choose, and with whom he is obliged to interact unless he resigns,” his lawyer pointed out.
Marion Ogier also highlighted the “stereotypical” nature of other details, such as his alleged connection with the association BarakaCity – which was dissolved by the French government in 2020 for Islamist propaganda - his comfortable lifestyle, and his discretion on social media. “He's never had any ties with BarakaCity. It's crucial to distinguish between the leadership circle of the association and the tens of thousands of people who made donations, especially when one considers the importance of giving in Islam, something which is one of its pillars. You can't see a threat in someone who donated to BarakaCity but who did so without subscribing to the beliefs held by some of its members,” she told the hearing.
In response, the representative for the Paris police prefecture emphasised that there was no urgency to grant an injunction suspending the execution of the original prefecture order, as it was a temporary two-month decision, which did not prevent Yassine from “engaging in any work outside these zones” during that period.
'Ashamed' to ask colleagues to be character witnesses
To try to demonstrate his good faith, Yassine provided statements from colleagues. His department head described him as a “respectful” employee who had shown no “political or religious proselytising” behaviour. Yassine says that he could have gathered more such testimonies. “But I was ashamed to ask them; I think there'll always be this suspicion around me. That my colleagues will think that there’s no smoke without fire.”
Once the hearing was over, Yassine paused for a few minutes outside the court to collect his thoughts. “If this job hadn't been a passion, I'd have quit long ago,” he says. He recounts his years of study, from his vocational training certificate to his professional baccalaureate, culminating in a specialist diploma. “I lived in Meudon [editor's note, in the south-west suburbs of Paris] and had a two-and-a-half-hour commute every day to get to the school in La Ferté-Alais,” he recalls. Irritated by certain remarks from the police prefecture, such as the suggestion that he enjoys a comfortable lifestyle, he is already anticipating the potential repercussions of this suspension. “Today they suspend my badge because of the Olympic Games. Tomorrow, what reasons will they use? A football match? A Madonna concert?”
On August 17th 2024, the Montreuil administrative court issued an injunction suspending the Paris police prefecture’s decision. Regarding his alleged proximity to the radical Islamist movement the “intelligence services’ report provides no details to clarify, even briefly, the nature and frequency of the alleged relations,” said the judge who granted the injunction.
“Moreover, the incidents described as having occurred at his workplace were not mentioned by his employer who, through his department head, instead reported a complete absence of any acts or statements with religious connotations,” the judge added. The ruling also noted that Yassine has never been the subject of “any criminal proceedings, either for common law offences or for acts related to the events that led to the decision in question”.
Yassine will therefore be able to regain his security clearance and return to work, which has come as a relief. “Finally, with this decision I can go to work. It means I can no longer be under suspicion,” he says. However, this relief is temporary, as the injunction was a response to an emergency application to suspend the ban; the administrative court still has to rule on the substance of the case in the coming months.
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter