A French documentary about life among jihadi groups in Africa and the Middle East, which sparked a row over censorship, has been given an 18 certificate, reports The Guardian.
The rare move to give a French documentary an adult certificate came as the film, Salafistes, was released in cinemas in Paris after a debate about whether or not it should be banned.
The directors, François Margolin and Lemine Ould M Salem, said their aim was to show the reality of life in jihadi-controlled areas under sharia law as well as the ideology of radical Salafism.
Footage includes rare interviews with jihadi figures and residents in Mauritania, northern Mali and Tunisia, as well as Iraq. Scenes of everyday violence are interspersed with propaganda footage by groups such as al-Qaida of the Magreb and Islamic State, without added voiceover narration.
Footage of a police officer killed during the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris last year was removed from the film at the request of the officer’s family.
After the film was shown at the Fipa international TV festival in Biarritz this month a row erupted in France over whether it was right to show such footage, including extracts from propaganda videos.
Margolin said he was appalled by the row. “We risked our lives, we did it in incredibly difficult conditions because no one else had done it up to this point,” he told BFMTV. “If we risked our lives for it, it was to show what these people think.”