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Image posted, Reuters
French President Emmanuel Macron called on his country’s Islamic leaders to accept the “Charter of the Republic’s values” as part of a generalized crackdown on militants.
Macron gave the French Council of the Islamic Faith on Wednesday 15 days to accept the letter.
The charter states that Islam is a religion and not a political movement, and prohibits “foreign interference” in the affairs of Islamic groups.
This comes on the heels of three attacks, believed to have been perpetrated by Islamist militants, in just over a month.
Macron vigorously defended French secularism in the aftermath of the attacks, which included the beheading of a teacher who showed his students cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a class discussion last month.
The president and his interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, met on Wednesday night with eight leaders of the French Council of the Islamic Faith at the Elysee Palace.
Council representatives agreed to establish a national council of imams, and that new council will reportedly issue an official accreditation for imams, and this accreditation can be withdrawn if there is any violation of values.
President Macron announced new measures to counter what he called “Islamic isolationism” in France.
The measures include a wide-ranging bill that seeks to prevent extremism, and what was revealed Wednesday are measures such as restrictions on homeschooling and tougher penalties for those who terrorize government officials for religious reasons.
Each child will be given an identification number according to law, which will be used to guarantee attendance at school. Parents who break the law could face up to six months in prison, plus heavy fines.
The bill, which was seen by Agence France-Presse, makes it a crime to share personal information of individuals in a way that allows others who want to harm them to locate them.
Samuel Patty, a teacher murdered outside his school last month, was the target of an online hate campaign before his death on October 16.
“We must save our children from the clutches of Islamists,” Darmanen told Le Figaro newspaper on Wednesday. The French cabinet is debating the new bill on December 9.
Image posted, EPA
Macron’s comments on Islam were met with protests.
President Macron described Islam, earlier this year, as a religion in “crisis” and defended the right of magazines to publish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which many Muslims see as extremely offensive.
After these comments, the French leader became the subject of widespread criticism in several Muslim-majority countries. The protesters also called for a boycott of French products.
The secular state in France is the basis of the country’s national identity. Freedom of expression in schools and other public places is part of that, and curbing it to protect the sentiments of a particular religion is seen as undermining national unity in France, which has the largest number of Muslims in Western Europe.
