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French President Macron wants to prevent the rise of Islamist parallel societies, especially in troubled areas. His strategy: more control over education, mosques and clubs.
By Sabine Wachs, ARD-Studio Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron clearly names the boy. “We cannot help but discover that there is a radical Islam in France,” he said in Les Mureaux, a small town about 40 kilometers northeast of Paris. This undermines the values of the republic, trivializes violence and has led “some of our citizens, our children” to “take the worst path, even to consider it the correct one.”
Not without reason, Macron delivered his opening speech on separatism at Les Mureaux. The city of Yvelines department is one of 15 cities in which the authorities have increasingly cracked down on Islamist propaganda from cultural associations and mosques since 2019. More than 70 young people have traveled to Syria from Yvelines to join groups radical Islamist terrorists there.
Macron also attributes this to a failure of the republic: “We created our separatism ourselves. Our republic allowed ghettoization. It created agglomerations for misery and difficulties.”
Teaching from home should be more difficult
Now the main concern is to return the republic and its values to the people. Schools must play a central role in this. Because more and more children from disadvantaged neighborhoods do not attend a public school in France and are officially taught at home. Time and again, however, authorities would find that the children were actually being taught by dubious Islamist preachers.
“We only discovered one of these schools last week,” Macron said. “Simple structures, walls, small windows. Children who come in at 8 o’clock, accompanied by veiled women with nikab. If you ask the children what they are learning, they say, prayers, a few more things. That is their school education. . “
Greater control of mosques and associations
This should come to an end starting next school year. Children from the age of three can only be taught at home for health reasons. France intends to train its own magnets in the future, and is slowly reducing shipments from abroad, from Turkey, Tunisia or Morocco.
In addition, the funding of mosques and Islamic associations should be more closely monitored. “Some clubs that offer sports, cultural, artistic and other activities, that make social offers, help the most vulnerable in our society with food and other aid, use their structures to indoctrinate people,” said Marcon. Associations with such extremist tendencies should be able to dissolve more easily in the future.
Left criticizes stigmatization of Islam
A corresponding bill for Macron’s keynote speech will be presented to the cabinet in early December and to the Muslim umbrella organization in France in mid-October. Above all, he criticizes the president’s choice of words. This is not about separatism, it is about radical and political Islam, which the umbrella organization has been fighting against for years.
There is also resistance to the president’s statements in the opposition. They are not going far enough to the right, they are calling for more concrete measures, including a ban on the headscarf for women who accompany children on school trips. The left in France criticizes the stigmatization of all Islam. A plan was planned against all separatists, but Macron only spoke of radical Islam. The bill, Macron said, applies to all religious and political groups that have tendencies to undermine the republic. Radical Islam is currently in focus due to its increasing activity.
