On July 2025, Timoty G., born in 2006, was arrested in Saint-Etienne (France) and charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism with the aim of preparing one or more crimes against the person. The young man, stopped near his high school, was found to be in possession of two knives.
The young man’s adherence to incel theories and regular consultation of masculinist influencer video content was confirmed after his arrest. “This is a first in France,” wrote Le Monde, “never before has the French justice system indicted a man for an exclusively masculinist-inspired plot.” In fact, this is only partially true
The word “incel” – which has received fresh media attention after the recent success of the Netflix series Adolescence – is a contraction of “involuntary celibate”. Francis Dupuis-Déri, an expert on anti-feminism and masculinism and professor at the University of Quebec, Montréal (UQAM), explains that for incels the “main issue is sex, not the formation of a couple.”
These are “tens of thousands of young men who represent themselves as disadvantaged by nature, who are ignored and refused sex by women.” According to published studies, Dupuis-Déri adds, these young men are “strongly misogynistic, many of them openly incite rape with impunity on the discussion forums of their online community, and idealise mass murders, some of which have been perpetrated by men who openly declare themselves members of the incel movement. Not to mention explicit references to Nazism.”
Beyond the incel
Stephanie Lamy is a French researcher and author of La terreur masculiniste (“Masculinist Terror”, Editions du détour), a text in which she analyses and maps the different types of masculinist and anti-feminist movements and their modes of operation.
As Lamy explains, incels are only one part of a much larger movement, though they are often the most visible and recognisable part when it comes to media coverage: “Especially in France, we know that incels generate a form of violence that is more easily recognisable as something that could disturb public order from a state security perspective. Added to this is the sociology of incels, who are mostly young men.” Furthermore, Lamy adds, “this allows older men to ‘other’ them, distancing themselves performatively from sexism, misogyny and masculinist discourse that they may themselves adhere to.”
France is a particularly interesting case here, because – albeit slowly and sporadically – dots are being connected between specific events that trace a line of masculinist radicalism that could indicate a trail for other European countries to follow. For example, on 16 February 2025, a 17-year-old boy broadcast a video live on TikTok in which he threatened to attack women with a knife.
The content was reported, which allowed law enforcement to intervene, as Lamy writes in Mediapart. “The prosecutor of Annecy (south-east France) published a statement on X at 17:46, confirming that the alleged perpetrator was linked to the incel movement. She also revealed the charges brought against him, namely: direct incitement to commit an act of terrorism using an online public communication service, death threats against individuals and apology for terrorism.”
“Masculinist terrorism should challenge us to rethink our collective representations of what terrorism is” – Stéphanie Lamy
The Annecy prosecutor, Line Bonnet, told Mediapart: “I considered it to be a terrorist act because the defendant declared himself to be a member of the incel movement, which can be qualified as a terrorist organisation,” and added, “this is an emerging movement for which we are not prepared. We are used to religious or political radicalisation, but male radicalisation is new to us.”
Again, in May 2024, a man planned a shooting in Bordeaux, scheduled for the anniversary of the Isla Vista massacre, a highly symbolic date for the incel movement, which also coincided with the passing of the Olympic flame through the city. For the authorities, the act was linked to the flame: “Despite a plan modelled on North American masculinist attacks, there is no accusation of terrorism,” Lamy explains.
In her article, Lamy goes back as far as 2014 to catalogue the violent events in France that could be linked to or inspired by radicalised circles.
The problem, Lamy explains to me, is that public debate (in the media and political discourse) is often “hyperfocused” on incels, which erases the other components of the so-called “manosphere”, such as the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way, an extremist masculinist movement) or the Pick Up artists (sexist, misogynist groups that rely on seduction and manipulation techniques), among others.
Furthermore, Lamy adds, the only deadly masculinist attack that we know of in France “was committed by a man who was radicalised by a member of the MGTOW, not incel, radical milieu, Mickaël Philétas” in the femicide of Mélanie Ghione.
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That is why, Lamy insists, it is important to consider masculinism in its different components because these are “radical milieus” in which subjects can move from one fringe to another, depending on the moment and the discourse.
“Public authorities struggle to identify masculinist ideologies for what they are: a set of participatory conspiracy theories, which can drive individuals or groups to commit violent acts, both in the private sphere (domestic, sexual and economic violence) and in the public sphere (large-scale online harassment, all the way up to deadly attacks), with the aim of reconsolidating male dominance,” Lamy writes in her book. So, how should we define masculinism?
“From a security perspective,” Lamy writes, “I propose the following definition: masculinism is a set of identitarian, ideological perspectives that are constructed, disseminated and conducted in various radical milieus (online and offline), and which promote violence in all its forms, in order to maintain, or even reinforce, men’s dominance over women and gender minorities.” More broadly, “masculinist terrorism should challenge us to rethink our collective representations of what terrorism is”, adds Lamy.
”The manosphere should not be seen as a mushroom that has sprung up out of nowhere, much less a mere product of the internet,” explains Matteo Botto, educator and author of the paper “Swallowing and spitting out the red pill: young men, vulnerability, and radicalization pathways in the manosphere.” “The manosphere,” Botto continues, “is an emanation of the current patriarchal order in which we live, the classist order, the racist order, the ableist order. They are all connected. The systemic aspect always has to be taken into account when we talk about the manosphere, because yes, it is a patriarchal emanation, but it has its specific form precisely because we live in a society such as we do today […]. So much so, that the manosphere itself is deeply connected with other groups, such as the Alt Right.”
In general, however, it should be added that the discourse coming from masculinism, such as the crisis of masculinity, goes well beyond the political sphere that we can define as right-wing or far-right.
On the other side of the ocean, masculinist terrorism or antifeminist attacks have existed – in the sense that they have been identified – for some thirty years and now serve as an “example” for those taking action in Europe.
Marc Lépine, 25, killed 14 women at the Ecole polytechnique in Montréal on 6 December 1989. Before killing the women, he first separated men from women and declared (in a letter and at the scene) his “hatred for feminists”; in 2014 Elliot Rodger killed six people (three of them women) and wounded 14 in Isla Vista, California. Rodger immediately became a figurehead of the incel movement: he had published a 140-page manifesto and a YouTube video in which he announced his intention to “slaughter all those blondes he [had] lusted after and [who] rejected him.” Again, in 2018, Alek Minassian killed 10 people, mostly women, in Toronto, and spoke of an “incel rebellion.”
And Europe?
The phenomenon has been observed, but not fully framed, at the European level. Europol’s 2020 annual report on the state of terrorism in the European Union highlights the relationship between anti-feminism and the theory of the “great replacement.” With the exception of a report published in 2021 by the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN, which is now part of the EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalisation) that focuses on the incel phenomenon, the institutions do not pay special attention to masculinist extremist movements.
Europol spokesman Jan Op Gen Oorth explains that incel rhetoric has emerged as “a worrying subculture in the broader landscape of violent extremism in Europe.” In recent years, this rhetoric “has become increasingly radicalised, showing significant overlap with other extremist currents, such as violent right-wing extremism (VRWE), misogyny, nihilism and even accelerationism.
But despite these intersections, the phenomenon cannot be classified exclusively within VRWE.” Op Gen Oorth adds that there are several incidents in Europe that show that “incel radicalisation is no longer limited to online spaces or misogynistic discourse, but progressively manifests itself in acts of physical violence.” Generally speaking, these phenomena are mostly only treated as news events.
As El Confidencial explains, although there have been no attacks In Spain directly linked to the incel movement, there are police reports and academic research that warn of the potential danger of these communities. The rise of anti-feminist discourse and the normalisation of hatred of women in some youth sectors is a growing cause for concern. Although incels in Spain are not directly integrated into political parties, their rhetoric has been instrumentalised by some far-right actors, such as Vox, especially in campaigns appealing to the“forgotten man” or rejecting laws on gender violence as discriminatory.
The narrative of the “crisis of masculinity ” and the alleged victimisation of men has served as fertile ground for gaining the sympathy of disillusioned young men who consume misogynistic content online. “The term incel is part of their propaganda,” Lamy adds. “It allows them to make their claims on behalf of all men who are single. But their real ideology is lookism. They believe that they are ‘genetically inferior’, and that society should assign them ‘genetically superior women’ for equality among men.”
According to Italian journalist Claudia Torrisi, the same can be said of the situation in Italy. To date, Torrisi explains, there have been no crimes overtly linked to the incel movement in Italy; however, some individuals have been linked to the movement after the fact. In particular, the double murder of Daniele De Santis and Eleonora Manta, killed on 21 September 2020 in Lecce by Antonio De Marco.
The 21-year-old, De Santis’ roommate, had developed a deep resentment towards the couple. Although De Marco seems never to have had direct contact with platforms or forums linked to the “manosphere,” months earlier he had written in his diary: “I have decided that if I don’t have a girlfriend by the end of the year, I will kill someone […]. If fate does not want Daniele and other people to die, then it must bring me a girl who wants to be with me.” In Italy, De Marco appears to have become something of a “martyr” for the incel community.
The double murder of Chiara Spatola and her boyfriend, Simone Sorrentino, killed on 24 April 2025 in Volvera, Turin, has also been linked to the incel movement. According to investigators, the murderer, neighbour Andrea Longo, had become infatuated with the girl and was unable to accept her rejection.
Then there’s the case of a young man arrested in 2021 for terrorism. Among other things, the young man said he intended to carry out “a massacre during a feminist demonstration. Jewish and communist women are our enemies. Modern women are emotionless meat puppets, to be exterminated.”
“What we are talking about here is an anti-feminist and misogynist backlash that touches both the online and offline spheres,” explains Silvia Semenzin, a researcher in digital sociology in Madrid, where she works on issues related to gender violence and online misogyny. The online world “amplifies and multiplies the violence, which is hardly a new thing. The discourses we find in the manosphere are no different from the discourses of the 1940s, or from those of a fascist nature.” Violence, Semenzin continues, “is simply the consequence of this type of culture, which normalises misogyny.”
Domestic violence, a lead worth following?
British journalist Joan Smith, author of “Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists” has an especially relevant theory in this context. In her book, Smith argues that if victims were believed, if domestic violence were recognised and controlled more effectively, and dealt with properly in court, numerous acts of terrorism, committed in the name of religion, extreme ideology and misogyny, could be avoided.
In an article published last July in the Guardian, Smith writes: “The latest example of violence in the home spilling into the streets comes from last summer’s riots.” According to data obtained by the Guardian, “Two out of every five people arrested – 41% of the 899 individuals arrested for taking part in violent disorder, to be exact – had previously been reported to the police for domestic abuse. according to data obtained by the Guardian. The offences they were accused of included actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm, stalking, breach of restraint and non-molestation orders, coercive control and criminal damage. In some areas where violence broke out on the streets, the figure was as high as 68%. In Rotherham, where 75 people were arrested after rioters set fire to an asylum hotel, 35 turned out to have been previously reported to the police for domestic abuse.”
