France taking measures to tighten noose around extremists

Nahla Abdelmonem

France is taking a series of measures to rein in Islamist groups.

The European state was the scene of repeated terrorist attacks in 2020 against the background of the cartoons offending Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic religion.

Respect for French Republic

The French parliament approved on 16 February a bill proposed by President Emmanuel Macron. The bill makes it necessary for everybody in France to demonstrate respect for the ideals of the French Republic. The same bill also considers Islam a heavenly religion, not a political movement.

The bill aims to counter separatist policies by Islamists. France is afraid that Islamist movements active in it want to establish their own independent state by forming their own social networks.

It is also afraid that the same movements would impose their control on the French political stage which opens the door for separation from the French constitution and foreign interference in French affairs.

Brotherhood religious organizations, mosques

The bill passed into law by the French parliament on 16 February gives state authorities the right to supervise religious institutions and regularly revise their financing to prevent dubious funding to them.

The French government hopes that its supervision of the same institutions would prevent them from graduating a new generation of extremists who will wreak havoc on French security.

The new law also imposes restrictions on internet content with the aim of preventing sites managed by the religious institutions from promoting hate and violence among French citizens.

French authorities arrested a number of parents in the past period after accusing them of incitement in connection with the murder in October last year of schoolteacher Samuel Pati who showed his pupils the offending cartoons.