The French government has shut down mosques, schools, and associations linked to the spread of Islamist ideology in fifteen neighbourhoods across the country.
French Secretary of State for the Interior Laurent Nuñez announced the closure of 130 drinking establishments, 12 places of worship, three schools, and nine associations linked to radical Islamism on Friday, Le Parisien reports.
“We fight against political Islamism that suggests that the law of God is superior to that of the Republic,” he told French media. He added that in his view political Islamism should not be conflated with the religion of Islam more generally.
While Nuñez noted that the closures occurred in fifteen different neighbourhoods, he did not identify which specific neighbourhoods were affected by the closures. The closures come as part of the National Plan for the Prevention of Radicalization (PNPR).
Earlier this yea# rin April, French president Emmanuel Macron promised to tackle the issue of political Islam in the second part of his five-year term, saying, “Secularism is the possibility of believing in God or not believing in Him… of never imposing on society a religion or detracting from rules of the Republic to do this.”
“When we talk about secularism, we do not really speak of secularism, we talk about the communitarianism that has settled in some quarters, of a political Islam that wants to secede from our Republic,” he added.
Radical Islamic ideologies, such as Salafism, are rampant in Islamic intellectual circles in France, according to French-Tunisian Islam expert Hakim el Karoui of the Montaigne Institute, who produced a report for the French president last year.
Mr el Karoui also highlighted the growth of foreign influence from countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who he claimed fund mosques and imams who promote more fundamentalist and radical strains of the religion.