25 years of September 11: “The trap of Al-Qaeda is the long wars which helped to get Trump elected on the promise of putting an end to them”

Yves Trotignon is a former executive of the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE) and a former diplomat. A specialist in jihadism and counter-terrorism, he teaches at Sciences Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in Yvelines. He is notably the author of Secrecy policy. Views on The Legends Bureau (PUF, 2018).

September 11 marks the irruption of tragedy into the privacy of the Western public for the first time since 1945. What remains in our collective memory and in our lives?

I am used to working with young people who were born just before or after September 11, 2001. They did not witness it, but it is a generation who grew up with reinforced controls in train stations and airports, with the permanent threat of an attack, with intelligence laws and a very powerful and efficient anti-terrorism tool. They did not know the before, they did not know the shock of those who were old enough to see the images of the towers collapsing, but they are immersed in it. They have understood that this is a tragic fact, a turning point with major political, strategic and internal consequences. A form of carelessness was lost in the process.

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