French President Emmanuel Macron announced and partially implemented a series of restrictive measures against individuals and organizations linked to radical Islam after the killing of Samuel Paty, the middle school teacher beheaded October 16 in the northern suburbs of Paris. Paty was killed by an 18-year-old boy of Chechen origin who had learned, through social networks, that the professor had shown satirical cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed during a lesson on freedom of expression. The boy, Abdoullakh Anzorov, lived in a small town in Normandy, about 70 kilometers away from Paris, and had no ties either with the professor or with the middle school where he taught.
Macron held a “defense council” with ministers and law enforcement officials on Sunday evening, following which he made two announcements: more security measures for schools and “concrete acts” against the most dangerous factions of Islam. radical. Currently, seven people are under arrest for the murder of Paty, mostly relatives of Anzorov, who was killed by the police during an attempted arrest.
On Monday, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced that 51 associations, including religious schools and mosques, will be inspected by law enforcement during this week. On Monday alone, the authorities searched 40 suspicious individuals and associations and opened investigations on 80 people who, on social networks, had expressed support for Paty’s beheading. Furthermore, 231 people with dual citizenship, French and from another country, will be deported. Darmanin, he wrote the Wall Street Journal, spoke very harshly: “We must stop being naive, there is no reconciliation with radical Islam.” The minister also said that the searches and checks are not necessarily linked to the killing of Paty: that of the government is a general initiative against radical Islam.
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Darmanin also temporarily closed the Pantin mosque in the Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis. The mosque’s Facebook page on 9 October had posted a video condemning Samuel Paty for showing the cartoons about Muhammad, saying that the teacher was spreading a message of “hate”. The video was deleted a few hours after the assassination of Paty, and the director of the mosque he said that he “regrets” sharing it but that the video was not an incitement to violence against the teacher. The minister said the mosque will be closed for six months.
Macron also announced on Tuesday the dissolution of Cheikh Yassine, an association close to Hamas, the radical Palestinian group. Cheikh Yassine, Macron said, is “directly implicated” in Paty’s murder; its co-founder, Abdelhakim Sefrioui, had already been arrested a few days earlier. Sefrioui is a well-known figure of radical Islam in France, who had often expressed extremist positions and had clashed severely with moderate imams and religious; in recent days there has been a lot of controversy over why a judicial procedure had not opened against him before the murder. Macron also said that “in the coming days and weeks” other similar associations could be dissolved or put under observation. Two of them had been mentioned in recent days: the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) and BarakaCity, an Islamic non-profit.
Macron spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, as Anzorov was of Chechen origin: the two promised to “strengthen Franco-Russian cooperation in the fight against terrorism and illegal immigration”. Anzorov, however, was legally in France, with refugee status. In addition, Minister of European Affairs Clément Beaune discussed with French ambassadors from all over Europe on the measures to be taken to counter terrorism on the internet. Margaritis Schinas, Vice-President of the Commission, wrote him on Twitter saying that the latest attacks, that of Christchurch in New Zealand and the one against Paty, show the urgency to take measures against terrorist content online.
Radical Islam is one of the issues that has engaged the government of Emmanuel Macron the most in recent years. A few days ago, the French president had announced with great emphasis a new bill with harsh measures against “separatism”, a term he has been using for some time to indicate the fact that many members of the Muslim community would live in a “parallel society”, porous to Islamic fundamentalism and contrary to secular values of the French Republic. In recent days, the government has announced that the bill, which should be presented to the Council of Ministers in December, could be further strengthened.
– Read also: Macron said Islam is a religion in crisis
Radical Islam is one of the campaign themes of Marine Le Pen, the right-wing populist leader, who has long criticized Macron, accusing him of being too permissive with extremism. Many analysts, however, fear that the sudden tightening of the measures proposed by the president has gods legal limits and may provoke retaliation against the Islamic community.
On Wednesday evening, Samuel Paty will posthumously receive the Legion of Honor, the highest French honor, in a celebration at the Sorbonne, the most important university in the country, with Macron present. The decision to hold the celebration at the Sorbonne was the teacher’s family.
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