France - A draft law that targets “radical Islamism” or downright Islamophobia?

On February 16th, France’s National Assembly, lower chamber of the Parliament, passed a controversial bill meant to guard the country against what the government termed as “Islamist Separatism”. The French PM in response said,“Not a text against religion, nor against the Muslim religion”, but against radical Islamism, whose purpose, he said, is “To divide French people from one another”.

The bill comes within the wake of a sequence of terror attacks in recent years. The law was in planning before but the murder of Samuel Paty, a junior high school teacher who was attacked in the street and beheaded after showing cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in civics class, gave new impetus to the bill. The killing was committed by an 18 year old Chechen after a lethal social media campaign against the teacher. However, Paty’s death is simply one in a sequence of jihadist-inspired attacks in France which include the 2015 shooting sprees at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan concert hall, and the bloodshed at a church in the Mediterranean city of Nice in 2015 itself. Nice was also the scene of a 2016 attack that killed 86 people when a person rammed a truck into Bastille Day revellers.

What does the law aim to do?

The law predicts a range of measures, including school education reforms to ensure Muslim children do not drop out, stricter and severe controls on mosques and rules against hate campaigns online. Once the law was implemented, French mosques could see increased surveillance over and observation of their activities, like financing. The government would be able to exercise surveillance and watch over the training of imams, and have greater powers to shut down places of worship receiving public subsidies if they go against “republican principles” such as gender equality. Under French secularism laws, there is a ban on state employees displaying religious symbols that are “conspicuous”, for example, the crucifix or hijab. This ban would now be extended to any sub-contracted public service, as per The Economist. There would also be a suppression on home-schooling for children over age three, with parents from to be dissuaded from enrolling them in underground Islamic structures, according to France 24. Stricter punishments would be introduced for online hate speech as well which is seen as a direct response to the killing of Paty.

What has been the reaction?

While the French far-right believes the bill could do more to fight extremism, the country’s Muslim population feels the legislation is unfairly targeting their community. At the Februaryprotest against the bill, one demonstrator told The Associated Press that “it’s not worth attacking a whole community because one person did a horrible act.”

Amnesty International also criticised the bill, In its current state, several aspects of the bill raise concern for the protection of freedom of association and expression and the principle of non-discrimination in France, Amnesty said.

However, the major criticism of the Bill came from abroad. Turkish President, Recep Erdoğan, who has been strongly criticised French President in recent months, has called the proposed law an “Open provocation”. The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Egypt’s top cleric, called Macron's views to be “racist”. Macron recently

said, “I will not allow anybody to claim that France or its government, is fostering racism against Muslims”, in reply to the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar.

Why is it significant politically?

Macron faces re-election in 2022, and experts have reported that he is alluring the French right-wing voters after facing a series of electoral losses in 2020. The President has also been facing disapprovals over a proposed “global security” legislation.

A group of left-wing MPs from his La République En Marche! (LREM) party defected, costing the party its absolute majority in the National Assembly, in May, 2020. Then in June, the LREM performed badly in local elections.

What happens next?

The Bill faces opposition from Muslims community and Left-wing Opposition, which claim it to be unfair targeting and stigmatising of the Muslim community which will lead to its alienation, a fear which is not misplaced. With time, we will come to the conclusion whether

the law will find a solution to the problem or it will backfire.

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