Islamic Groups Denounce French Govt ‘Islamophobia’ to EU Commission

A woman holds a placard reading "enough of islamophobia" as protesters demonstra
GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP via Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

Twenty-five Islamic groups from across Europe have written to the European Commission to condemn the French government over “Islamophobia” claims, including a controversial UK-based group.

The letter was addressed to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and asked her to take action against French president Emanuel Macron and his government, condemning Macron’s attempts to counter Islamist separatism in his country.

The signatories of the letter took aim at the values charter the Macron government has attempted to get French Islamic organisations to sign, often unsuccessfully, in recent months, claiming that the charter is a violation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, magazine Marianne reports.

Within the 56 points of the letter, the authors claim that the Macron government took advantage of the public beheading of teacher Samuel Paty, who was killed by a Chechen refugee last October after showing cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed during a class on freedom of expression.

“The Coalition urges attention to the situation in France, where the French government has exploited the killing of Samuel Paty for its own racist, discriminative and Islamophobic agenda,” the letter states.

Gilles Clavreul, who served as  an inter-ministerial delegate to the fight against racism and anti-Semitism from 2015 to 2017, commented on the letter, saying: “This is the usual rhetoric of rejecting in advance any form of a government investigation into the fight against radicalisation as an attack on the ordinary Muslim.”

Clavreul also spoke out against UK-based signatory CAGE, saying: “Under the guise of fighting Islamophobia, CAGE is linked to the international Islamist movement, including the jihadist movement.”

In 2016, CAGE outreach director and former Guantanamo Bay inmate Moazzam Begg spoke to a London crowd where speakers called for an Islamic caliphate. The event was also attended by the Islamist extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which was recently alleged to be recruiting in Sweden.

Zihni Ozdil, a historian and former Green MP in the Dutch parliament, claimed that all of the signatories to the letter also had links with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, saying: “This letter is obscene and insulting.”

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