France’s new interior minister, Bruno Letailraud, advocates the creation of a new criminal offense to combat political Islam in the country, while declaring that he would not rule out classifying and banning the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” group. did.
In an interview published Wednesday in the Valeur Actuel news agency, Letailault said France “faces a region corrupted by drugs and political Islamism.”
Asked if Austria could follow the lead of Austria, which became the first country in Europe to ban the Muslim Brotherhood organization in 2021, Letailault said: “I wouldn’t rule anything out.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is the world’s largest Sunni Islamic organization, founded in 1928 by Egyptian Islamic scholar Hassan al-Banna. Despite its transnational charter, its main branch remains in Egypt, where it was banned after the 2013 coup.
The group says it is committed to peaceful activities and democratic politics. There are also politically active factions participating in elections in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, and Morocco.
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In France, the group has been accused by some politicians of using its powerful networks to infiltrate and “Islamize” France.
“We must be especially wary of Islamist infiltration, which is spreading within associations, sports clubs, schools and even local authorities,” Lutailot said.
“This insidious Islamism is trying and has the potential to destabilize our society. With the 2026 local elections approaching, will we accept the creation of a communitarian list? ?Let’s not wake up at the last minute,” he added.
“This insidious Islamism is trying and has the potential to destabilize our society.”
– Bruno Lutailot, French Minister of the Interior
The Minister also reiterated his desire to legislate on this issue.
“Flerism,” understood as a doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood, “is a real threat and it’s time to fight it, to redouble the fight against separatism in the fight against political Islamism,” Rutailot said. he said, referring to the 2021 “Consolidating Principles Act.” “Republican” was promoted by President Emmanuel Macron to fight “separatism.”
The bill has been criticized as discriminatory against Muslims, expanding the grounds for closing mosques and disbanding community organizations, restricting home learning, and introducing a crime of “separatism” punishable by up to five years in prison. have been criticized by others.
“I think we can work with the Minister of Justice on new convictions that respond to this Islamist infiltration and the threat it poses to the fundamental interests of the nation,” Lutailot said.
According to Valeurs Actuelles, a meeting on this matter was held at the Ministry of Interior last weekend.
“The rule of law is not sacred”
Letaillot, a 63-year-old Catholic, is emblematic of the rightward shift of the French government under new Prime Minister Michel Barnier after this summer’s snap elections that resulted in a hung parliament.
Like Mr. Barnier, Mr. Letaillot does not come from Mr. Macron’s centrist movement, but from the traditional right-wing Republican Party (LR), and even from its most conservative side.
Mr. Lutailot, a former Senate LR caucus leader, established a reputation as a hard-liner on social issues. He opposed same-sex marriage, enshrining the right to abortion in the French constitution, and most recently a new law on the right to die.
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“I have three priorities: restore order, restore order, restore order,” Letailot said at a handover ceremony with his predecessor, Gerard Darmanin.
Mr. Letailot, like the far-right party National Rally (RN), which performed well in the consecutive European and parliamentary elections held in June, winning 125 out of 577 seats and representing the largest political group in parliament. has also promoted a hard line on immigration.
“I have a goal because, like millions of French people, I believe that mass immigration is not an opportunity for France,” he told a television program after taking office.
LeTaillou made a series of controversial statements on the issue, going so far as to say that “the rule of law is neither intangible nor sacred,” which was corrected by the Prime Minister after the uproar caused by his remarks.
During the June 2023 riots that erupted after the police shot and killed 17-year-old driver Nahel Merzouk in a Paris suburb, Letailault said the riots were “a kind of regression to ethnic origins. He asserted that there was. “Second and third generation” French immigrants.
new criminal offense
Last week, Lutailot gave a speech to governors in which he discussed proposals that directly target “political Islam.”
“There is no doubt that the law needs to be adapted to envisage new criminal offenses that correspond to the nature and strategy of political Islam,” the minister said.
“The information we have obtained proves a gradual mutation of the threat. Separatism is combined with infiltration. The former aims to constitute a small Islamist anti-society in the eyes of the world. “The latter aims to ‘brotherize’ or ‘Harariize’ the whole of society, gradually into community organizations, businesses, and sometimes even within local governments,” he said.
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“The state must be even more vigilant and take new steps against this insidious Islamism that has become dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood movement,” Lutailot added.
At last week’s parliamentary questioning, Lutailot again attacked “a very intrusive political Islam,” calling it “Flerism, which has a very precise ideological base with the supremacy of Koranic law and the degradation of women, under the mask of religion. denounced the anti-Semitism exhibited in The instrumentalization of anti-Zionism and Islamophobia. ”
“We have to move from fighting separatism to fighting political Islam. I will ask the DGSI (France’s main domestic intelligence agency) for a detailed report, and for sensitive parts other than national defence,” he said. I intend to carry on this ‘honor and shame’,” he added, adding that he wanted to create “a new criminal offense that would enable dissolution beyond what my predecessor was able to do.”
The former French government already commissioned a report on “political Islamism and the Muslim Brotherhood movement” in France in May, and the report is expected to be produced this autumn.
A government statement at the time stated that “Islamist separatism is a theorized political and religious project, characterized by repeated deviations from the principles of the republic with the aim of building an anti-society.” “The group movement plays a major role in building an anti-society,” he added. It is the spread of such a system of thought. ”
