Re: France Actively Surveiling 4,000 of its Citizens.. Oh boy..
Reasonable point!
I was thinking about the French and their open acceptance of freedom.
I think the political pendulum could swing quickly.
Islam is accepted as a religion, and many countries allow religious freedom.
Islam is much more than a religion, it is a complete political ideology,
that if followed in extreme, is vary contrary to western ideas of freedom.
Could France, for example treat Muslims the way that Saudi Arabia treats Christians?
That's what you are reading because it sells newspaper (and TV news-time).
It is not actually true. There was a schism, which led to two main groups. The Shiites and the Sunni, of which a good approximation is that 85–90% of the world's Muslims are Sunni and 10–15% are Shia.
ISIS was founded by a hothead Muslim preacher who had been incarcerated (by the American Army) with fellow Sunni soldiers. He managed to convince some of them to create the radical group called ISIS. Which is why, in fact, at first ISIS had some very well designed tactics that allowed them to conquer East Syria.
Why the east of Syria. Because this group could not remain in Iraq, which the American Army passed over to a majority Shiite government. So they left to eastern Syria and took over the Syrian oil-fields.
War is all about money!
As regards your comment in red above quoted:
I have a LOT of Muslim friends in France. France has the highest population of them of any country in Europe, most having come from Algeria. When France left Algeria it took with them the Muslim troops that had been fighting the insurgents.
Their population size is estimated at somewhat lower than 5 million. Why estimated? Because it is against French law for anyone including the state to collect information regarding one's religion. Religious belief is guarded as sacrosanct by the French Constitution, which is something they learned from the Nazi-occupation of France and the subsequent annihilation of much of the French Jewish population.
Which has a downside, however. Because French governments are not allowed to gather information regarding the Muslim-community, it had very little idea of what was going on with some hard-ball young Muslims who were intrigued by ISIS.
Out of a population of about 5 million Muslims, there are around 6000 would-be-whackos who profess a serious disdain for the French government and/or the French people. That's somewhere just less than 1% of the entire French population.
Does that put the question somewhat in perspective? I hope so.
Those who have left France to join ISIS and who come back are facing government indictments. They may go to jail. Of those, about a third are male, two/thirds being women and children. So, that's probably 3500 whackos who went off to join ISIS, of which only around 2000 remain in Syria - waiting to see what happens and trying to subsist.
Not many have dared to return, and some are seeking that the French government repatriate them because they have no money.
Those who had means to leave via Turkey and did get back into France are certainly keeping to themselves ...