An 18-year-old man was indicted by the national anti-terrorist prosecution and imprisoned after being arrested in the Saint-Etienne region. Having claimed the masculine movement Incel, he wanted to attack women.
He is suspected of having wanted to attack women. An 18-year-old man, arrested in the Saint-Etienne region, was indicted this Tuesday, July 1 by the anti-terrorist justice, in this first file exclusively linked to the male movement “Incel”.
• suspected of wanting to attack women
The suspect, Timothy G., was arrested near a high school in the Saint-Etienne region (Loire) with two knives in his bag. He wanted to attack women and clearly identified himself in the Incel movement.
The National Anti -terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) opened a judicial investigation this Tuesday, July 1 “against an 18 -year -old young man, claiming to be the Incel movement”, learned BFMTV to the prosecution confirming AFP information.
Timothy G., born in November 2006 in the Loire, was indicted for the association of terrorist criminals for the preparation of one or more crimes of attacks for people.
With a juvenile and shy look, his face almost glabrous and his body fluet, dressed in a navy blue t-shirt, he appeared this Tuesday evening before a liberties and detention judge (JLD) who decided to experience it. He was incarcerated in Paris.
“This young man is suffering, badly in his skin. I do not wish to express myself more. Now comes the time for the investigation which will have to determine the exact facts reproached to him and the criminal qualification which will correspond,” commented with BFMTV the lawyer for this young man, Maria Snitsar, adding that his client has no legal history.
• Incel, a mysogine movement
The Incel movement – English -speaking abbreviation for “involuntary singles” – brings together men who consider that they are alone because of women who do not want them. They feed a hatred towards them or towards feminism, deemed responsible for their failures.
This movement, born in North America, “has experienced an important phenomenon of radicalization in recent years,” said the police in BFMTV. 40,000 members were identified in 2017 on digital networks.
The “INCEL” movement was claimed by several authors of killings. In 1989, a 25 -year -old man, claimed “anti -feminist”, opened fire at the Montreal Polytechnic School, killing 13 students and a secretary, before committing suicide. More recently, in 2014, Elliot Rogers, killed six people in Isla Vista in California in the United States. This 22 -year -old man at the time of the facts, is described as “saint” within the movement.
Between 2014 and 2021 in Canada and the United States, at least 9 Incels attacks were counted at least 52 dead and 63 injured.
The Netflix series “Adolescence”, broadcast in spring and which has been very successful, highlighted these toxic and misogynist influences to which young men are online. Among the personalities stars in these algorithms is the masculinist influencer Andrew Tate, followed by nearly 11 million people on X and accused of rape.
According to a source close to the file, the suspect, Timothy G., who wanted to become an engineer computed masculinist videos, especially on the Tiktok social network.
“Incels (…) develop ever stronger links with the theses of ultra -right and stand out with racism, white supremacism and strong homophobia”, underlines a source within the police. “It is possible to see this extremism derive towards even integrate the movement of the ultra -right groups in the future.”
• First referral to the PNAT for a claim of the Incel movement
This is the first referral to the PNAT concerning an individual claiming to be exclusively of the “Incel” movement. This notion had so far appeared in a more marginal way in at least two files dealt with by this prosecution specializing in terrorist matters.
The first concerns the indictment of a young man from Hauts-de-France close to the ultra-right, suspected of projects of violent actions, indicted in Paris on September 22, 2023 and imprisoned. A source close to the file had presented him as “an unstable young adult, frustrated” rather “than an ideologist”.
The second concerns a file already tried, which had gathered four young people, one of whom wanted to go to Syria, two others glorified Hitler and Nazism, while all three dialogued by encrypted messaging with a woman dreaming of blowing up a church.
Two of them admired the theory of great replacement but also several authors of mass killings attributed to the far right, including Anders Breivik (Norway, Utøya, 2011, 77 dead), Brenton Tarrant (New Zealand, Christchurch, 2019, 51 dead) or Dylan Klebold (United States, Columbine, 1999.
Timothy G. was also interested in some of these facts.
