The French government has launched a shocking video campaign to try to dissuade would-be jihadis from going to war, reports The Guardian.
A film called #StopJihadism attempts to counter what officials believe are the most common arguments used by extremists to recruit French fighters and send them to Syria and Iraq to join the ranks of Islamic fundamentalists.
It uses a series of comparisons between what would-be jihadis are told and what, it says, is the truth.
The video opens with grabs from websites, including social networks such as Facebook, that glorify the Islamist cause and encourage the like-minded to sign up for action.
It then sets about contradicting a series of statements, using brutal and harrowing images.
“They tell you: ‘Sacrifice yourself at our side, you will be defending a just cause …’ The reality: you will discover hell on earth and will die alone far from home,” argues the first of four scenarios accompanied by alternating photographs of flag-waving, gun-toting Islamic State (Isis) fighters and suffering children and dead bodies.
The two-minute video, released on Wednesday concludes: “Jihadi indoctrination has new victims every day.”
By Wednesday the video had been viewed more than 181,000 times.