The French Ministry of the Interior announced the start of procedures for closing 6 mosques and dissolving a number of associations, due to their promotion of what it called “extremist Islam”.
“About a third of the 89 places of worship suspected of being extremist and registered in the lists of the intelligence services, which are 89, have been monitored since November 2020,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in an interview with the newspaper “Le Figaro”, on Tuesday.
He stated that “the government has already started the necessary procedures to close 6 of them,” noting that the mentioned places of worship “are distributed over 5 French provinces,” according to the European “Euronews” website.
He explained that since 2017, the security services have carried out about “24,000 searches and 650 closures of places frequented by militants, as part of their fight against Islamic separatism.”
He added that he would request “the dissolution of both the Islamic Publishing House (Nawa) and the (Black African Defense League)”.
He explained that Dar “Nawa”, based in the Arij region (southwest), “incites the extermination of Jews, and fatwas by stoning homosexuals.”
The Black African Defense League announced itself during a demonstration it organized against police violence in June 2020 in front of the US Embassy in Paris.
The Minister of the Interior added that he would request its dissolution because it “invites hatred and racial discrimination.”
And he added: “During the next year, there will be 10 other associations subject to dissolution procedures, including 4 associations starting next month (October).”
On September 24, the French State Council approved the government’s decision to dissolve both the “anti-Islamophobia rally in France” and “the city of al-Baraka.”
During the interview, Darmanan explained that the “Republican Commitment Contract” stipulated in the “Anti-Separatist Law”, which stipulates that associations receive government subsidies on the extent to which they respect republican values, will enter into force in January 2022.
On July 23, the French National Assembly (Parliament) adopted the controversial draft “Principles for Strengthening Respect for the Values of the Republic”, which was first defined as “the fight against separatist Islam”.
The law faces criticism for targeting Muslims in France and imposing restrictions on all aspects of their lives.
The law provides for the supervision of mosques and the associations responsible for their management, and for the financing of Muslim civil organizations.
It also imposes restrictions on the freedom of families to provide education for their children at home, in countries where headscarves are prohibited in pre-university education institutions.
