Policing Suspicion: Counterterrorism, Alienation, and Jihadist Activity in France’s Banlieues after 2015

France’s surburbs, termed "banlieues," sit at the center of the country’s security dilemma—where marginalization and state surveillance collide, and where the effects of counterterrorism policy are most visible. Following the 2015 jihadist attacks, these neighborhoods, particularly outside of Paris, became focal points of an expanded domestic security architecture. This thesis examines how variation in counterterrorism practices shapes patterns of jihadist violence in Parisian banlieues after 2015. It argues that higher levels of indiscriminate coercive counterterrorism—broadly applied measures such as mass identity checks, administrative searches, and movement restrictions not narrowly targeted at confirmed threats, later institutionalized under the 2017 Loi SILT—are associated with higher subsequent levels of attacks. Using an original dataset of counterterrorism operations coded from Le Monde and jihadist attack data from Europol, the study compares two departments with similar socioeconomic conditions but differing levels of intervention. The findings show that where coercion is applied more diffusely, violence tends to be higher rather than lower, highlighting the importance of how counterterrorism is implemented in practice.