New Muslim party aims for French election wins

A relatively new Muslim political party, that wants to overturn the veil ban, is eyeing up a stronger presence on the French political landscape, announcing on Thursday that it will field candidates in eight areas at next month's regional elections.

Published: 12 February 2015 16:22 CET

New Muslim party aims for French election wins

Shérazade Benhaddad and Khalid Majid, the party's candidates in Bobigny, Paris. Photo: UDMF

The Democratic Union of French Muslims (UDMF) wants to tackle the under-representation of Muslims in French politics.

The group said on Thursday that it would put two candidates forward in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, where the party already succeeded in getting its candidate elected as a councillor last year.

It will also put forward candidates in seven other "départements" across the country which cover cities such as Marseille, Lyon and Nice.

The party's founder, Nagib Azergui, told French newspaper Le Parisien that he believed the party's values were compatible with French democracy, much in the same way that France's Christian Democratic Party manages to separate religion from politics.

His party's aim, he told the paper, is "to give a voice to the part of the population that can't be found in the traditional parties."

Azergui says he doesn't want France to be governed by Sharia Law and has no intention of "Islamizing" French society.

However the party does have some controversial policies that will not be welcome among French secularists, notably their wish to overturn France's ban on headscarves in schools and see an increased investment in the Halal food industry to help boost the economy.

The role of Islam in France is once again being debated in the aftermath of the Paris terror attacks, committed by three homegrown Muslim extremists. Since then there has been scores of anti-Islam attacks carried out on Muslim targets, such as mosques.

France has struggled to integrate its Muslim community, Europe's largest estimated at around five million, although figures are difficult to come by as secular France does not collate religious data.

The UDMF was founded in 2012 in order to provide Muslims "an alternative in France when it comes to economics, society, and politics", its official website says.

"In the media debate sparked by some intellectuals and political leaders, it is clearly insinuated that Islam is not compatible with democracy," reads the website.

"But living together, morality, deep respect for other communities, the importance of family, the elderly, solidarity, mutual aid, charity and fighting injustice are precisely the values that drive us."

The party is still small, with 900 members and around 8,000 supporters.

Coincidentally the announcement comes as a book by French author and polemicist Michel Houellebecq, which envisions a France ruled by a Muslim president, tops the bestseller rankings in France.

Houellebecq was blasted by critics for scaremongering, however he himself said it would make sense for there to be a Muslim political party in France because Muslims are seriously under represented.

News of UDMF's election push comes just days after France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that France had to do everything it could to fight the Muslim Brotherhood – an international Islamic organization that has been designated as a terrorist organization in several countries.

He said that France needed to help the members of the Muslim community who were being confused with jihadists and terrorists.

"A religion can not impose its views on our neighbourhoods," he told Le Parisien.

France has in recent weeks been shaken by a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party has accused Attal of not doing enough on security as the anti-immigration party soars ahead of the government coalition in polls for the June 9th election.

Speaking in Viry-Chatillon, the town where Shemseddine was killed, Attal condemned the “addiction of some of our adolescents to violence”, calling for “a real surge of authority… to curb violence”.

“There are twice as many adolescents involved in assault cases, four times more in drug trafficking, and seven times more in armed robberies than in the general population,” he said.

Measures will include expanding compulsory school attendance to all the days of the week from 8am to 6pm for children of collège age (11 to 15).

“In the day the place to be is at school, to work and to learn,” said Attal, who was also marking 100 days in office since being appointed in January by President Emmanuel Macron to turn round the government’s fortunes.

Parents needed to take more responsibility, said Attal, warning that particularly disruptive children would have sanctions marked on their final grades.

OPINION: No, France is not suffering an unprecedented wave of violence

Promoting an old-fashioned back-to-basics approach to school authority, he said “You break something – you repair it. You make a mess – you clear it up. And if you disobey – we teach you respect.”

Attal also floated the possibility of children in exceptional cases being denied the right to special treatment on account of their minority in legal cases.

Thus 16-year-olds could be forced to immediately appear in court after violations “like adults”, he said. In France, the age of majority is 18, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Macron and Attal face an uphill struggle to reverse the tide ahead of the European elections. Current polls point to the risk of a major debacle that would overshadow the rest of the president’s second mandate up to 2027.

A poll this week by Ifop-Fiducial showed the RN on 32.5 percent with the government coalition way behind on 18 percent.