A study submitted to President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday claims that Islamists are threatening national unity and infiltrating France’s republican institutions. According to the assessment, which was written by two senior civil officers, there is proof that the Muslim Brotherhood has a policy of “entryism” into public institutions including local government and schools.
Given the gravity of the report’s findings, Macron requested that the government present “new proposals” by the beginning of next month following a meeting of his security cabinet. One of the fundamental principles of French nationalism is secularism. In an unofficial statement, an Élysée official said that there was a “new phenomenon – entryism – which is different from separatism”.
“Entryism means getting involved in republican infrastructure… in order to change it from the inside out,” whereas separatists said Muslims lived in a parallel society in France. “It works from the bottom up and requires dissimulation,” the official stated.
Is the Muslim Brotherhood influencing local government policies?
The Federation of Muslims of France (FMF) is the principal French branch of the medieval Muslim Brotherhood, which was established a century ago to encourage a return to fundamental Islamic principles, according to a copy of the article that was published in the journal Le Figaro.
According to them, the FMF owned 139 houses of worship in France, and another 68 were linked, making up around 7% of the total. Along with 21 schools, the organization operated around 280 associations in a variety of disciplines, including sports, education, and philanthropy. Establishing “ecosystems at local level” to “structure the lives of Muslims from birth till death” was the movement’s stated goal.
Are French secular values under threat from within?
“The local government develops a connection with [the movement’s] officials, who are seasoned campaigners… According to the authors, “As the ecosystem solidifies, social norms—the veil, beards, dress, and fasting—are gradually imposed.” As a result, religious practices grow more stringent, with many girls donning the long robe known as the abaya and a noticeable rise in the number of young girls donning Islamic headscarves. Some are just five or six years old.
“Any allegation that associates us with a foreign political program, or with a strategy of ‘entryism'” was furiously denied by the Federation. “Confusing Islam with political Islamism and radicality is not only dangerous but counter-productive for the Republic itself,” according to the FMF. “Behind these unfounded accusations, there is a plan to stigmatise Islam and Muslims.”
Advocates of rigorously enforcing France’s secular laws, which aim to exclude all religions from public life, have taken offence at the study. “Below-the-radar Islamism trying to infiltrate institutions, whose ultimate aim is to tip the whole of French society under sharia law,” said Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on Tuesday after he was chosen head of the conservative Les Républicains party on Sunday.
Retailleau, who has established a reputation as a hardliner, has expressed alarm over the potential for Islamic lists of candidates in France’s next municipal elections.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a far-left politician, cautioned that “Islamophobia has crossed a line” and charged that the president’s security cabinet had embraced the “delusional theories” of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally, and Retailleau.
The authors of the paper, who travelled to ten different parts of France and four other European nations, came to the conclusion that the Muslim Brotherhood was focusing on Europe with financial support from Turkey and Qatar since it was losing ground in the Middle East and North Africa.
“Having given a Western look to the ideology in order to implant themselves in Europe, (the Muslim Brotherhood) tries to lay down the roots of a Middle Eastern tradition while concealing a subversive fundamentalism,”
they stated.
