Macron to Outline France's Controversial Anti-Separatism Bill
It would add to a raft of other measures, from bans on veiling in public schools and burkinis - modest swimsuits worn by some Muslim women - at beaches, underscoring longstanding friction between conservative Islam and staunchly secular French values.
Charlie Hebdo Legacy
The legislation is also backdropped by the multiple Islamist terror attacks France has weathered in recent years—a dark legacy highlighted in an ongoing trial over the 2015 attacks against the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket.
Last Friday, a Pakistani immigrant attacked two people with a meat cleaver in front of Charlie Hebdo’s old Paris offices. He claimed in a video to be avenging the satirical weekly’s recent republication of controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which catalyzed the 2015 attacks.
Making reference to the cartoons at a citizenship ceremony earlier this month and before the latest attacks, Macron defended the “right to blasphemy” as a fundamental freedom, even as he condemned “Islamic separatism.”
“To be French is to defend the right to make people laugh, to criticize, to mock, to caricature,” the president said.
Such sentiments resonate in France, where millions demonstrated for free expression after the 2015 attacks.
A recent Odoxa poll finds more than three-quarters of French people surveyed back legislation against separatism, even though a sizable chunk fear it may deepen fractures in French society. Fueling concerns, too, is a separate IFOP poll finding some 74% of Muslims under the age of 25 putting their religion before the state — compared to just 25% of those over 35.
Fears of Political Islam — and Stigmatization
For French-Italian writer and geopolitical professor Alexandre Del Valle, political Islam is a particular threat. A 2019 book he co-authored, The Project, is about the Muslim Brotherhood’s alleged attempt to infiltrate and conquer the West.
“Radical Islam is not a conservative way of being religious,” he said in an interview. “It’s a plan, it’s a project that wants to build a Muslim-submitted universe. They want to reinstate a Muslim caliphate in the world.”
Del Valle believes the French President understands this and he supports the upcoming legislation. He proposed measures to fight against separatism, he said, during a French senate committee hearing last year on radical Islam.
“Mr. Macron has understood we face a strange period with many different types of fanaticisms that are converging,” Del Valle added. “Far left, far right and radical Islam.”
Others are less enthusiastic about the government’s strategy.
“The principle of a law isn’t necessarily the best tool to fight against separatism,” said François Clavairoly, president of the French Protestant Federation.
Muslim representatives are voicing sharper concerns.
While supporting areas like training imams in France, French Muslim Council President Mohammed Moussaoui warned against singling Islam out.
“The idea of associating Islam with negative concepts risks creating confusion,” he told the news channel BFMTV.
Islamophobia - Becoming Banal?
Jawad Bachare, head of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France - a group has been accused of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood - is more pointed, arguing the legislation threatens to further stigmatize Muslims and threaten their freedom to worship.
“I think the real stakes go beyond this,” he said. “We’re near the end of Macron’s first term. And with each election, there are the same questions about Muslims and financing of Muslim places of worship.”
Bachare points to statistics his organization has gathered showing a sharp increase in anti-Muslim acts in recent years—and to a recent incident in which French deputies walked out of a coronavirus hearing when a hijab-wearing student leader testified.
“Islamophobia is becoming banal right now,” he said, “to the point of becoming normal.”
Lisa Bryant reports for VOA from Paris.This articleis published courtesy of the Voice of America(VOA).
