“Just Cause”

“Just Cause” is the label used to point suspicion for the abductions toward the Muslim community, turning a personal crime into an apparent act of terrorism. Agnès identifies the phrase as a deliberate part of the scheme: a terrorist organization of any kind could have served to pull the investigation away from the kidnappers’ personal motive.

Use in the Deception

The label gives the threat a political and communal target. By invoking “Just Cause,” the plan encourages investigators to interpret the outrage through the lens of terrorism and Muslim identity rather than ask why these particular people were abducted. The choice of label is therefore not incidental wording but a means of misdirection.

Agnès’s Interpretation

Agnès places this false attribution alongside the plan’s other objectives. She reasons that the threat was designed to make the Brigade look culpable if she and her father were murdered, while the terrorist framing would divert attention from the personal purpose of the kidnappings. The phrase thus supports two layers of deception: it obscures the perpetrators’ motive and threatens institutional blame.

Thematic Significance

After identifying the tactic, Agnès turns from its mechanics to the divisions it exploits, reflecting on race and blood and the persistence of people’s inability to move beyond them. “Just Cause” exposes how a political slogan can make prejudice useful to a criminal plan: it directs suspicion toward a community while concealing the individual motives behind the violence.