The move to repatriate them has been prompted by fears they too could one day turn to armed jihad.
France, like scores of other European states, has been mulling over how to deal with jihadists and their families seeking to be repatriated from conflict-torn Iraq and Syria, as well as those in detention, after the terrorist group lost vast swathes of territory across both regions.
While government policy so far has been to refuse to take back ISIS militants and their wives, Paris has said it needed to determine the situation of minors, some of which were born under ISIS rule.
“French authorities are entering an active phase of evaluation on the possibility of repatriating minors,” one official told French media.
Around 60 women, including 40 mothers and about 150 children, have been reported in Syria by their families in France.
Most of the children are under the age of six.
Paris, which has been working closely with Kurdish authorities and the International Red Cross, has located a number of the minors in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria.
The children will be repatriated on a case-by-case basis, officials said, adding that their return would depend on whether their mothers agree to let them go.
“It is in the best interest of the children,” one of the officials said. The first children could be sent back to France before the end of the year, although the complexity of the situation may push back this timeline.
France is worried that if these children are left in Syria, they could also turn to armed jihad in adulthood, and become “ticking time bombs”.
“It’s a huge challenge, because these children have been scarred for life by the violence they witnessed. Some of them were so-called ‘cubs of the caliphate’ and probably trained to kill,” conservative Senator Bruno Retailleau told the French news channel BFM TV on Thursday.
France in December 2017 repatriated three children belonging to Mélina Boughedir, a French jihadi wife who was sentenced to life imprisonment by an Iraqi court for her allegiance to ISIS.
She kept her youngest child with her in detention in Iraq.
That case was relatively easy for France given that Baghdad has a functioning legal system unlike in Kurdish northern Syria, which is outside of government control.
France has suffered a series of deadly militant attacks over the past three years and is grappling with the risks posed by returning ISIS fighters and the ongoing terror threat.
Figures for the number of French ISIS fighters in the Levant region have varied between 500 and 700 over the years.