A report from the French secret services warns that Islamists are ordering attacks on Christians in Europe.
An internal document leaked to Le Figaro details how jihadist propaganda urges attacks on churches and Christian communities across the continent. The leak reveals that the violent messages are repeated.
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The leak of a confidential report from the French secret services, published by The Figaro, It provides a detailed account of more than thirty years of jihadist propaganda against Christians. The document, which was intended to circulate only among French government officials, confirms that The main jihadist groups target Christians, churches and places of worship among their preferred targets.. According to this internal note, jihadist Christophobia is a central part of its doctrine and not a secondary or improvised deviation.
The report clearly describes that this ideological hostility stems from a simplified interpretation that is nevertheless widespread among radical Islamist movements. They identify the West with Christianity, Christianity with the Crusades, and the Crusades with a permanent aggression against Islam.. In this way they present the European world as a “Crusader” space and, therefore, as a historical and contemporary enemy. This vision allows them to classify Christians as infidels and to justify violence in religious terms.
Propaganda against Christians sustained for decades
The leaked document contains a long series of calls for violence against Christians made by the main jihadist leaders. In 1998, Osama bin Laden signs a fatwa in which the explicit reference to the “Crusaders” already appears.”. Years later, his successor Ayman al-Zawahiri reinforces this line and presents the cworld conflict as a direct confrontation between “Crusaders and Muslims”. This language is not accidental but doctrinal.
The Islamic State takes this rhetoric even further. The internal memo cites statements from 2014 in which its spokesmen They promise to “break the crosses”, “conquer Rome” and “reduce Christian women into slavery”. It also includes publications from 2015, 2020 and 2024 that They literally incite attacks on churches and worshippers, and recommend using knives or vehicles as weapons in places of worship.. The report highlights that these directives have been repeated in various languages and on different platforms, and that they always single out Christians as a priority target.
Europe is not safe for Christians
The leaked report highlights that Europe It is not an exception to this pattern of violence against Christians.. Although the continent is often perceived as a safe space, far removed from the religious conflict present in other regions, the French secret services have recorded several incidents that fall within the same doctrinal logic described by jihadist propaganda. The document recalls that In 2000, a planned attack on the cathedral and the Strasbourg Christmas market was already detected., a plan that was neutralised but which demonstrated that churches and Christian sites were among the Islamist groups' priority targets even before the public emergence of the Islamic State.
The text also includes the December 2016 attack on the Berlin Christmas market, where a terrorist killed twelve people with a lorry. The report highlights that, during his previous stay in an Italian prison, The author had expressed explicit hatred towards his Christian fellow prisoners, an element that fits with the ideological discourse which presents Christians as natural enemies.. This detail shows that attacks are not always driven by direct orders from an organisation, but can arise from sustained radicalisation processes in prison environments or in individual trajectories.
In Brussels, 2023, Islamic State propaganda celebrated an attack that had caused the deaths of people identified as Christians.. This celebration does not merely signify the approval of a violent act, but confirms that, for these groups, The death of Christians in Europe is perceived and used as a symbolic triumph. which reinforces the narrative of confrontation between “Croats” and “faithful Muslims”. The leaked document underlines that these public reactions form part of the same ideological architecture described in other sections of the internal memo.
France: the country with the most attempts and attacks on churches
The leaked report devotes an especially extensive section to France, because It is the European country where the secret services have identified the most attempts and successful attacks against churches., Christian faithful and spaces linked to worship. According to the internal note, the chronology of incidents related to this threat begins long before the emergence of the Islamic State and has continued to the present day, with cases spanning more than two decades. The document highlights that In 2000, France was already the scene of the first terrorist plot detected in Europe that explicitly targeted a Christian site.A plot against Strasbourg Cathedral and its Christmas market. That project was foiled, but the authorities recorded it as an early indication that churches and Christian sites were within the operational logic of jihadist groups.
From 2015, the French secret services place several episodes in the same doctrinal pattern. That year, Sid Ahmed Ghlam prepared an attack on two churches in Villejuif after studying their Mass schedules and conducting rehearsals in the area.. He was only arrested after accidentally shooting himself. The leaked note identifies this case as one of the first verified attempts in France to attack a Christian church with detailed planning. The following year, in 2016, two attackers They entered the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray and murdered Father Jacques Hamel while he was celebrating Mass.. According to the report, this act had a very clear symbolic dimension within the jihadist strategy, because the murder took place at the altar, in the midst of a liturgical service, and with explicit references to the discourse that qualifies Christians as enemies.
In the same year, 2016, French services foiled another attempted attack when A car loaded with gas canisters was parked in the vicinity of Notre-Dame in Paris.. The document records that this project was part of a chain of plans operated by radicalised individuals who had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. The following year, in 2017, An attacker assaulted a police officer on the forecourt of Notre-Dame., in an episode that, although not directly targeting Christian faithful, fitted into a series of actions that used spaces of high symbolic value in European Christianity as the setting for assaults.
The chain of episodes closes, for the time being, with the attack on 10 September 2025 in Lyon., where a Christian man of Iraqi origin in a wheelchair was attacked. The report describes it as an episode that falls within the same climate of doctrinal hostility and reminds us that, in this case, The victim was chosen for being a Christian.. The secret services emphasise that, despite the diversity of the attackers' profiles, all these cases follow the same logic expressed in jihadist propaganda statements and messages.
Dozens of attacks on Christians around the world
The document also recalls the attacks directed against Christian communities in various countries. In Algeria, during the 1990s, the Armed Islamic Group murdered religious figures and missionaries, including the monks of Tibhirine. In Libya, in 2015, the Islamic State executed 21 Copts in an act recorded and broadcast as a propaganda message explicitly titled against “the nation of the cross”. In Egypt, Pakistan and Nigeria, attacks on churches or Christian celebrations have also been recurrent.
The note does not aim to provide an exhaustive list, but makes it clear that the attacks form a continuous and coherent pattern in line with the instructions disseminated by jihadist propaganda. Each episode follows the same logic set out in the texts and communiqués cited in the doctrinal sections of the report.
Dozens of attacks on Christians around the world
The internal note explains that, despite the loss of territory by the Islamic State and the weakening of al-Qaeda, the jihadist ideology remains active and adapted to current digital channels. Calls to attack Christians are spreading on encrypted platforms and in narrow channels. that function as spaces of propaganda and inspiration for radical individuals.
The report points out that this decentralisation It makes it difficult to prevent attacks, and that many targets —especially small, unsupervised churches—remain a feature of the instructions circulated by jihadist groups and sympathisers. According to French intelligence services, this situation continues to pose the possibility of spontaneous attacks or acts of individual initiative.
The leaked text does not offer policy recommendations, but rather a finding: Jihadist violence against Christians is a stable component of radical Islamist doctrine.. This reality is documented in speeches, communiqués and attacks over three decades. According to the French secret services, this element remains active and has shown no signs of disappearing.
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