France: Macron Vows Crackdown on Political Islam
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced new measures aimed at countering political Islam in France. The changes would limit the role that foreign governments have in France in training imams, financing mosques and educating children.
France: Macron Vows Crackdown on Political Islam
Soeren Kern | Gatestone Institute | February 21, 2020
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced new measures aimed at countering political Islam in France. The changes would limit the role that foreign governments have in France in training imams, financing mosques and educating children.
Macron also vowed to fight what he called “Islamist separatism” and to lead what he described as a “Republican reconquest” aimed at reasserting state control over Muslim ghettoes — so-called no-go zones (zones urbaines sensibles, sensitive urban zones) — in France.
In a much-anticipated policy speech (full transcript here), Macron, during a visit to the eastern French city of Mulhouse on February 18, said that his government would seek to combat “foreign interference” in how Islam is practiced, and the way that Muslim religious institutions are organized in France. “The problem is when, in the name of a religion, some people want to separate themselves from the Republic and therefore not respect its laws,” he said. “Here in France, there is no place for political Islam.”
