LONDON (Middle East Eyes) - France has been accused of systematically targeting its Muslim population with a raft of policies brought in by President Emmanuel Macron to address so-called “separatism and Islamism”, a new report says.
The report by British advocacy group Cage highlights Macron’s use of executive powers to create what it calls a “systematic obstruction” policy to target Muslim groups and institutions in France over the last four years.
Drafted in 2017, the policies initially aimed to address why a number of French Muslims had gone to fight in Syria and Iraq from particular regions in France. They then morphed into a nationwide project aimed at addressing “Islamism” and “community withdrawal” across the country.
Since then, France has introduced a series of controversial laws that several human rights groups have deemed Islamophobic - including the anti-separatism law and imam charter.
The “systematic obstruction” policy is implemented by the executive branch of the state, whose task is to enforce the law and establish public policies.
French policy operates, according to Cage, by putting maximum pressure on Muslim groups via the establishment of “department cells” in each of France’s 101 government departments.
French government documents state that the department cells aim to “coordinate the action of all actors likely to contribute to the fight against Islamism and community withdrawal.”
Cage says the policy has been used to single out Muslim organizations and gives the state “vast powers to monitor and close institutions, unilaterally dissolve organizations and seize money under the pretence of preserving Republican values and combating Islamism and/or separatism”.
The group said the policy was used to justify the closure of at least a dozen mosques, hundreds of Muslim-owned businesses and charities, and the seizure of millions of euros worth of assets because of the alleged promotion of Islamism.
Among the organizations closed for allegedly promoting Islamist propaganda were the French Muslim charity Barakacity and the non-profit Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), which monitored Islamophobic attacks across France. Both organizations deny the charges, but both remain dissolved.
Cage used the report and a press conference in Paris on Wednesday to call for an immediate repeal of these powers.
The group argued that its findings met the threshold of persecution as defined in international law.
Rayan Freschi, a Cage researcher and French legal jurist who worked on the report, said it exposes how Islamophobia has been “institutionalized through an infrastructure of enforcement and mass surveillance”.