French Muslim groups deal blow to Macron’s anti-extremism charter

Three Muslim groups refused on Wednesday to back an anti-extremism charter pushed by French officials following a spate of jihadist-inspired attacks, dealing a blow to a flagship initiative of President Emmanuel Macron's government.

Published: 21 January 2021 07:43 CET

French Muslim groups deal blow to Macron's anti-extremism charter

The Great Mosque of Paris. Photo: AFP

The charter rejects “instrumentalising” Islam for political ends and affirms equality between men and women, while denouncing practices such as female circumcisions, forced marriages or “virginity certificates” for brides.

French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), a body set up almost 20 years ago to enable dialogue between the government and the Muslim community, broadly welcomed the charter and five of its eight federations signed on Sunday.

However, the other three groups said on Wednesday they could not join their colleagues.

“We believe that certain passages and formulations in the text submitted are likely to weaken the bonds of trust between the Muslims of France and the nation,” the three groups said in a statement.

“Furthermore, some statements are prejudicial to the honour of Muslims, with an accusatory and marginalising tone.”

Macron had railed against the promotion of “political Islam” in France in November last year after a teacher was beheaded outside his school.

He had shown pupils cartoons of the prophet Mohammed as part of a free-speech lesson.

The attack prompted a crackdown against extremist mosques and Islamist associations, along with a vigorous defence of French secularism.

Macron said this week that the charter offered “a clarification of how the Muslim community is organised”.

ANALYSIS: Has Macron succeeded in creating an 'Islam for France'?

It will also provide a framework for a new National Council of Imams that will be responsible for vetting imams practising in the country.

The future of the charter is now uncertain.

The three groups – two of which are Franco-Turkish organisations and the other which describes itself as a teaching and cultural group – said they would be willing to sign up only after a “broad, democratic and participatory consultation”.

“In order to adopt this charter, we must recognise ourselves in its content. It would not be useful to sign a text that our community cannot serenely accept,” they wrote.

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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.