Will France’s Anti-Separatism Law Fix its Islamist Extremism Issue?
Author: EMAN Network staff
The Constitutional Council, the highest constitutional court in France, approved a controversial “anti-separatism” law aimed to protect the country from “Islamist separatism”. The law has been criticised by a number of political actors from the Left and the Right. In its ruling, the court rejected Article 16 of the law on suspending activities of associations that are subject to a dissolution process, saying that the process could take up to six months which would lead to a violation of freedom of association. The council has also rejected Article 26 on granting or withdrawing residence permits for foreigners accused of rejecting the “principles of the republic”. According to the council, it is impossible to determine with sufficient precision the behaviour justifying the withdrawal of residence permits.
The bill, introduced by Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin, seeks to reinforce the country’s secular system which is facing, according to the government, a growing communitarian infiltration driven by Islamist inspiration. However, the law came amid growing discriminatory discourse against Muslims in France. In a report published in 2019, Amnesty International denounced the stigmatisation by French authorities of Muslims and urged the government to implement adequate policies against hostility and violence targeting the Muslim community.
The deepening discomfort of France’s Muslims is being weaponised and misused as a political tool by a number of radical Islamist preachers. In fact, France’s efforts to curtail religious radicalism are being portraited as a “war against Islam”. In most cases, these attacks came from a number of Muslim Brotherhood preachers based in the Middle East, such as Mohammed Al Sagheer, who consistently states that France is waging a war against Islam and that French products must be boycotted (click here to see Al Sagheer’s profile on the EMAN Extremist Individual Database). These preachers believe that France or at least its political class hates Islam and seek to push French Muslims to abandon their Islamic values and beliefs. Radical preachers also attempt to position secularism as the predominant ideological force behind the authorities’ willingness to “discriminate” against French Muslims. By targeting secularism, these preachers seek to confuse the French Muslim community about the nature and role of secularism in safeguarding rights and freedoms in modern and diverse societies.
Meanwhile, anti-Muslim sentiment increased significantly and gained traction following the murder of Samuel Paty, a French middle-school teacher in October 2020. Paty was beheaded after showing students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The crime, which came following several terrorist attacks on French soil in the last five years, triggered a wide political and social debate about the relationship of Islam with radicalism. However, most of these debates failed to distinguish between common religious practices from radicalisation, terrorism, and extremism.
The use of France as a Western country waging a war against Islam among radical preachers is expected to remain significant in the next few years. Such actions are likely to damage France’s reputation among Muslims around the world. Furthermore, portraying the Muslim community as an oppressed one in social media could hinder its efforts to thrive and truly contribute to France’s socio-economic progress.
In order to effectively prevent these preachers from finding fertile ground to spread their ideologies among young Muslims in France and Europe, the space for oppositional views carried by Muslims should be expanded and not reduced. Accusing academics expressing concerns about the impact of the anti-separatism bill of “intellectual complicity” with terrorism will undermine free speech. It could also prevent the French society from seeing diversity as an important asset capable of boosting France’s social and economic attractiveness rather than a threat to its republican values.
