France: Republic against «Political Islam» (Part I)

Abstract

On February 16, 2021, the French National Assembly (lower house of parliament) approved a draft law on countering separatism. On March 30, this document is to be discussed by members of the Senate. The degree of public discussions around him began to grow immediately after the speech of President E. Macron on October 2, 2020 and the subsequent publication in the press of the main provisions of the project. In fact, the document is aimed at preventing the radicalization of the Muslim community of France, at its more thorough adaptation to the socio-political conditions and basic values of the Republic. Most of the Muslim community and the clergy of France approved the proposals of the president and the government, while about a third of Muslim organizations opposed them. The last, as a rule, are linked to the international Islamist association «Muslim Brotherhood», which seeks to expand its cells and network in France, and in Europe as a whole. Organizations operating legally in the Turkish communities of the Old World articulate especially clearly the attitudes of the «brothers». In fact, at the religious level, they reproduce and continue the loud verbal confrontation between Macron and Turkish President R.T. Erdogan in October-November last year. The article examines the strategy of the French government to counter the attempts of radical Islamists to legalize the phenomenon of «political Islam». This problem, aggravated after the terrorist attacks in a number of European countries in October 2020, has become no less acute for France today than the fight against the pandemic.

Keywords

• french republic
• separatism
• islam
• radicalism
• bill
• national assembly
• erdogan
• macron