France wants to control where foreign money comes from and where it goes to finance mosques and other places of worship. In addition, it will end the program that allows the sending of magnets formed and funded by third countries. Similarly, it will transform the teaching programs with teachers paid by foreign governments to have greater control over these professionals and the subjects they teach. This was announced by President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday when he launched his “strategy to combat Islamist separatism”, the term recently coined by the French Executive in substitution of the more common “communitarianism”, but whose meaning remains the same: a “project anti-democratic and anti-republican politician ”which at its end leads to radicalization and which, in any case, constitutes one of the main threats to the security and values of French society. This dangerous drift begins in schools, in places of worship - many financed by foreign powers with dark interests - and in the neighborhoods themselves, often depressed and with problems of marginalization, drugs and poverty that create easier prey for radicalization in who feel abandoned by the state. And there it is, said Macron, where the fight must begin or be redoubled.
"Our enemy is Islamist separatism," Macron said at the end of a visit "on the ground" to one of these neighborhoods with problems of marginalization sensitive to radicalization, Bourtzwiller, in the Alsatian city of Mulhouse. "Separatism is incompatible with freedom and equality, it is incompatible with the indivisibility of the Republic and the necessary unity of the nation," he insisted.
But that Islamist separatism, the president admitted, has managed to get strong where the state disappeared or lost strength, as in the 150 neighborhoods throughout France that are now designated as Islamist strongholds. “Separatism feeds on the absence of an alternative offer in the social, sports, school, cultural and health fields. We must strengthen and accompany territorial associations and collectivities "because" when the Republic does not keep its promises, others try to replace it, "he said.
The "strategy" against "Islamist separatism" consists of several pillars that seek to address these shortcomings. Macron defined two priorities on Tuesday: "Regain control and fight against foreign influences, particularly in schools and places of worship," and "better organize" the latter, with greater control over the formation of magnets and other representatives in charge. of transmitting a religious message that, on too many occasions, transcends the political.
In education, Macron announced the end of the ELCO program (Teachers of language and culture of origin) that, since 1977, allows educated and paid teachers in other countries (currently 9: Algeria, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey) can teach in France. The program, which involves about 80,000 French students, has a problem, Macron said: many teachers do not master French and the State has no control over what they teach, which has given problems in terms of radicalization in a few cases .
Except with Turkey, with which an agreement has not yet been reached, that program will be replaced as of September with the opening and financing of “positions for international foreign language teachers”, but that control French and are subject to control by the Gallic education system.
The Government also has mosques in its sights. It is about “better controlling foreign financing of places of worship to ensure transparency,” said Macron. “We need transparency about the origin and purpose of money. Where does it come from, who does it reach and what is it for, ”he said. And they are not only places of worship, it is also about who they exercise in them. France has a strict separation between the State and the Church, but that does not mean that the former can ensure that in the latter "the laws of the Republic are respected."
In this sense, he announced the progressive end of the so-called “consular magnets” system, the arrival every year to preach in the French mosques of up to 300 magnets formed by Algeria, Morocco and Turkey. The idea is to progressively reduce this program while reinforcing the formation in France of new magnets, a task for which the Government has given until March the French Council of Muslim Cult to “formulate clear proposals”.
"We need magnets trained in France that respect the rules of the Republic," said Macron.
European magnets against radicalization
An idea supported from Paris, where on Tuesday the first European Conference of Magnets against Islamic Radicalization was held, in which a hundred magnets from all over Europe participated. Precisely one of the problems, it was pointed out during the first day, is the lack of formation of the magnets. Only 10% of the imams of France have studied theology, they denounced, which makes this sector very permeable often to political radicalizations.
For three days, participants will discuss the situation and make proposals to end this "poison" and "disease" of Islam, as defined by the organizer of the event, Imam Hassem Chalghoumi, imam of the Drancy Mosque and president of the Institute of formation of the Islam of France.
“Political Islam has left the mosques and is in the neighborhoods. He has taken young people, sports associations, all neighborhoods hostage. In France we have 150 neighborhoods under the influence of Islam. It has surpassed the mosques, ”Chalghoumi warned this newspaper, that because of its fight against radicalization it has been threatened and has been escorted.
Marginalized neighborhoods, the objective of "Islamist separatism"
The choice of the Bourtzwiller neighborhood to launch the strategy against "Islamist separatism", less than a month before the municipal elections throughout France, is no accident. Bourtzwiller is one of the 47 “republican reconquest neighborhoods”, a device created in 2018 to fight crime and the trafficking of drugs and other illegal substances, especially through the reinforcement of police patrols. Bourtzwiller, of 15,000 inhabitants, is also one of the 17 recently defined “territories to fight radicalization” due to the special impact of this scourge, and for which departmental cells have been created to fight against Islamism and community withdrawal ( Clir, for its acronym in French) presided over by the prefects. It is, according to the Elysium, to "fight against the movements that spread hate speech against the Republic" and, at the same time, "hinder attempts to organize, through education, sport, culture or the development of an economy underground, of counter-societies outside the national community ”.
