Image Credit: BERTRAND GUAY / Contributor / Getty 
A new meeting of the defence council dedicated to the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood’s infiltration of French society was held on Monday, July 7th, at the request of President Emmanuel Macron. The president called for a law to be passed this summer, with increasing administrative and financial penalties for organisations supported by the Brotherhood.
The meeting was convened following the publication of a widely noted report on the growing infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into all spheres of French society. After the report was published, the government outlined some initial responses, which the president deemed completely inadequate. The July defence council was therefore intended to draw up new proposals to “strengthen the measures aimed at combatting separatism,” in reference to the law “reinforcing respect for the principles of the Republic” passed on August 24th, 2021, during Macron’s first term. The minister of the interior, the minister of national education, and the minister of sport were present.
In a press conference, Macron announced that new financial and administrative sanctions would be introduced. He called for a bill to be drafted and passed before the end of the summer, for implementation before the end of the year.
Among the planned actions is the introduction of a new mechanism to freeze monetary and financial contributions, based on existing counter-terrorism tools. Macron also announced an extension of the scope of administrative dissolution, which currently applies only to legal entities—to include endowment funds. The objective is to minimize the possibilities of foreign funding for mosques, associations, or cultural institutes, which then become key venues for the spread of Brotherhood propaganda.
The president also called for a strengthening of the administrative regime prohibiting illegal publications, as well as measures to combat incitement to discrimination and violence.
The 2021 law introduced a “republican commitment contract,” aimed in particular at associations applying for public subsidies. The defence council has provided for administrative penalties “with daily fines” for associations that have signed the contract but do not comply with its terms.
Another topic discussed by the council was the training of imams. This is a recurring theme in French politics in the fight against political Islamism. The council decided to “strengthen the training of imams” in order to “truly break away from excessive dependence on countries of origin.” The issue has been discussed for years, but no truly satisfactory solution has yet been found. The 1905 law establishing the separation of church and state stipulates that the French Republic must not finance any religion. The state’s involvement in the training of imams—which would imply at the very least a right to oversee this training and, potentially, manage public funding to ensure proper regulation of training structures—seems difficult to implement.
Macron has finally announced that he wants to meet with representatives of the Forif (Forum de l’islam de France), one of the bodies created in 2022 to represent Muslims in France. Several of these associations have expressed alarm in recent weeks about the risks of “dangerous generalisations” promoted by the report on Brotherhood entryism. Macron has defended himself against any “conspiracy-theory or paranoid” attitude.
In May, Marine Le Pen denounced the “half-measures” proposed by the government. This time, the defence council seems to be showing more determination in the fight against Islamism. It remains to be seen whether the bill will be stripped of its substance in the coming weeks by well-meaning people who are more concerned about “generalisations” than the reality of the Islamisation of France.
