The new European Jihadism and its avatars

European Jihadism has evolved since it first appeared in the 1990s. In many European countries, at the outset, it tended to be restricted to the "disaffected youth! from the poor suburbs (France) or poor inner city areas (in the UK), but it rapidly spread to the middle classes, whether Muslims or converts. In 2013, with the civil war in Syria, Jihadism underwent major changes. Before that it was restricted to a few hundred people, but it has now risen to several thousand (around 5000 young people have left Europe for Syria and their numberwould have beenmuchhigher had the governments not established controls preventing the departure of adolescents via Turkey to Syria). At the same time, adolescents have become numerous and the number of girls and converts has sharply increased. The aim of the article is to propose an understanding of themindset of these new social actors in the light of the internal conditions of European societies.