Thread: Islamist Extremism in France (Part I)

Islamist Extremism in France (Part I)

The scourge of radical Islam that is sweeping the country is impacting children as well as adolescents and young adults.

BY LESLIE SHAW Sun, April 24, 2016

Muslim youth riots in Sarcelles during the Hamas' war with Israel in the summer of 2014 (Photo: © Reuters)

In 732 A.D., the town of Sens in Burgundy was invaded by the troops of Abd el-Rahman as a diversionary tactic to divide the French armies who went on to defeat the Saracens at the Battle of Poitiers. Thirteen centuries later the town again made the history books when it issued the first curfew of the state of emergency declared in France on November 20, 2015 a number of days after the Paris attacks.

The curfew followed raids in the Champs-Plaisants district that uncovered stockpiles of weapons and fake identity papers.

Two weeks later, French law enforcement raided the Lagny-sur-Marne mosque east of Paris and seized a revolver, a hard disk and jihadist documents. The raid led to nine house arrests and travel bans against 22 people.

The ex-president of the Lagny Muslim Association had already fled to Egypt in December 2014 with 10 members of his congregation.

Two other mosques were closed down in Lyon and Gennevilliers, a northern suburb of Paris. Within three weeks of the state of emergency being declared, police carried out 2,235 raids, detained 232 people and seized 234 weapons. This was the first phase in uncovering the radical Islamic ecosystem financed by foreign states and crime that spread throughout France from the 1990s.

The November 2015 and January 2016 attacks came as no surprise to French security services, who warned in early 2015 that thousands of Islamic radicals "willing and able to out-wait the capacity of the state to dedicate scarce resources to watching them" were ready to strike.

That assessment proved to be correct. France is now confronted with a permanent threat from a section of its population. Despite the deployment of 10,000 troops and 100,000 police, more attacks will occur. French people no longer live in security in their own country, thanks to 50 years of bad policy decisions.

The Kervenanec district of Lorient is one of France’s 762 zones euphemistically labelled as a “Sensitive Area” by the interior ministry, where crime has reached critical proportions. Lorient is also a stronghold of radical Islam. The number of mosques serving Brittany’s 180,000 Muslims doubled from 27 in 2003 to 53 in 2015.

The Pontanézen mosque is run by Salafist Imam Rachid Abou Houdeyfa, notorious for indoctrinating children. In one class he taught that "people who listen to music will be turned into monkeys and pigs."

More and more young Bretons are converting to Islam and repudiating their families. At least 15 are fighting in Syria and Iraq. The DGSI (secret service) is currently investigating over 100 individuals linked to jihadist networks.

Indigenous Bretons are up in arms, notably sheep farmers, because of widespread sheep-rustling in the weeks leading up to the Islamic feast of Aïd-el-Kebir. Around 120,000 sheep are ritually slaughtered each year in France, often illegally and with great cruelty, in homes and apartments.

The scourge of radical Islam that is sweeping France is impacting children, adolescents and teenagers. In January 2015 pupils at Daniel-Mayer junior high school in the 18th Paris district brandished knives and meat cleavers in a rap video posted on YouTube. Further south, a 13- year-old boy was arrested in Ariane, a suburb of Nice. He fired a dozen shots with an airgun at a nursery school playground, wounding two girls aged four and five, in the head and back. These incidents demonstrate that the culture of jihadis spreading like wildfire among the children of a section of the French population.

In another case, a 15-year-old pupil shouting "Allah Akbar" fired an airgun at his physics teacher and threatened to kill his French teacher. The same day Le Parisien newspaper revealed that over 50% of French schoolteachers have taken out insurance against the risk of violence involving pupils and parents. Aside from private schools and state schools in middle-class areas, the French education system has become a difficult and dangerous place to work.

Meanwhile, the government continues to relax standards to accommodate unruly pupils with no interest in learning, and Islam has become a standard part of the curriculum. An exercise in the French 7th grade history course requires pupils to answer six questions on Rewards for Combatants of Islam. It reads :

"Not equal are those of the believers who sit at home and those who strive hard and fight in the Cause of Allah with their wealth and lives. Allah has preferred in grades those who strive hard and fight with their wealth and lives above those who sit at home. Unto each, Allah has promised good, but Allah has preferred those who strive hard and fight, above those who sit at home, by a huge reward."

Is there a valid reason that 12-year-old children should be memorizing the tenets of jihad?

On March 5, 2016, two adolescents travelled to Syria thanks to the fatal cocktail of jihad and social media. With 1,000 cases of radicalization of high school students identified in 2015 and over 7,000 cases involving those under 21, the growing alienation of French Muslim youth bodes ill for the future stability and security of French society.

Over 1,000 French jihadists are flagged by law enforcement, some of whom participated in a dozen attacks against France from 2012 to 2015. The number is likely to increase exponentially in the coming years, powered by the internet.

Islamist Extremism in France (Part I)

Islamist Extremism in France (Part II)

The experience of the city of Paris and French corporates in dealing with the growing phenomenon of radical Islam in France.

BY LESLIE SHAW Wed, May 4, 2016

Muslims in France protest against a French law that forbids the wearing of religious symbols (including the hijab)

in the primary and secondary schools. (Photo: © Reuters)

France has one of the largest Muslim communities in the West (estimated at 10% of the population), and French corporates have more experience than most in dealing with radical Islam.

City of Paris
In September 2012, in response to the encroachment of radical Islam, the mayor of Paris set up an Observatory on Secularism to ensure the principles of the 1905 separation of Church and State were being respected by the city’s 73,000 employees.

The observatory remained dormant but was reactivated in January 2015 after the Islamic terrorist attacks. Saïd Kouachi, one of the Charlie Hebdo killers, worked in the city sanitation department from 2007 to 2009. He was part of an employment program for young people from the ghettoes surrounding Paris.

A number of these youths were assigned to going door-to-door to inform householders on the benefits of domestic waste segregation. Many created problems for their supervisors due to their increasingly fundamentalist Islamic beliefs: refusing to shake hands with women, bringing prayer mats with them and taking time off to return to their workplaces to pray. Kouachi was moved from district to district as his supervisors, who described him as fundamentalist and unmanageable, became exasperated with his behavior. He was fired in July 2009.

A supervisor later revealed that city authorities had been notified about Kouachi’s radical behavior on several occasions, but that the subject was taboo. A “Charter on Secularism” was posted in the sanitation workshops and a one-day training program held for supervisors in 2013, but no action was taken to deal with the problem.

Since January 2015, the Observatory members meet regularly, have issued a 20-page rulebook to municipal employees and interviewed numerous city managers about the problems of radicalization. Departments most affected are sanitation, parks and gardens, public safety and security, and youth and sport. Common issues are praying in the workplace, refusal to shake hands with, look at or follow instructions from female supervisors, demands for work schedule accommodation on Fridays and during Ramadan, wearing of hijabs and other head-coverings.

RATP Paris Transit Authority
The RATP chapter of the CFDT union claims there is a groundswell of Islamist ideology within the company where Samy Amimour, one of the 2015 Paris suicide bombers, worked as a bus driver. In December 2015, a newspaper reported that several RATP employees were targeted by “Fiche S,” a law enforcement indicator that flags individuals linked to terrorism.

Religion-based workplace incidents are widespread. In 2013, RATP management issued a guidebook to supervisors listing typical infringements of secular principles and outlining rules to enforce. An RATP executive commented, “We pretend the problem has been solved, but the reality is that managers in contact with radicalized individuals in bus depots are left on their own to handle these kinds of things.”

ADP Paris Airports Authority
Following the November 2015 attacks in Paris, CDG Airport CEO Augustin de Romanet revealed that 70 airside security badges had been withdrawn from Muslim airport employees and 4,000 staff lockers raided by police as the employees were considered a security risk.

French Automobile Industry
The problems facing French public-sector companies have long been present in the automobile industry, where Muslims account for around 70 percent of the workforce. Militant Islam began to manifest itself in the 1980s, when it emerged that shop stewards frequently had links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Employees began to shave their heads, grow beards and wear Islamic garb as the Salafist ideology gained ground in the suburbs where the auto plants are located. Automakers Renault and Peugeot integrated Muslim practices into their management model, setting up on-site prayer rooms and planning work schedules to fit in with prayer times and Ramadan.

Employee associations were established to cater to the needs of Muslim staff, organizing religious celebrations, pilgrimages to Mecca and arranging for the repatriation to North Africa of deceased workers. This policy of appeasement benefited the industry since it minimized religion-linked workplace conflict and litigation and fostered employee engagement.

Radical Islam and the Emergence of Jihadism
The first generation of Muslim immigrants who came to France in the 1950s kept their faith to themselves. The second generation was more militant and began making demands for accommodation of Islam. Opting for exclusion rather than integration into mainstream society, some turned to crime. Those caught and imprisoned often converted to radical Islam, spreading the ideology throughout the ghettoes upon release.

The third generation came of age with the nationwide 2005 riots, sparked by the electrocution of two juvenile delinquents who climbed over a fence into an electricity substation to escape from the police.

The same year, Abu Musab al-Suri published a 1,600-page Global Islamic Resistance Call urging the masterminds of jihad to exploit the presence of the huge disaffected Muslim populations in Europe by prompting them to set up terror cells targeting Western civilians. The strategy was rolled out on the internet and by Salafist imams operating in mosques financed by the Gulf states.

A growing number of Muslims in France and Europe converted to radical Islam resulting in the emergence of an informal jihadist army on the continent. In February 2016, the number of radical Islamists identified by French law enforcement was 11,700.

Islamist Extremism in France (Part II)

Islamic Extremism in France Part III: Stemming the Tide

The enemy is global political Islam and not just a few thousand deviants that need to be neutralized or rehabilitated.

BY LESLIE SHAW Mon, May 23, 2016

Illegal prayer on the street in France (Photo: © Reuters)

In April 2015, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that a Salafist minority was "winning the ideological and cultural war" for control of Islam in France.

"Salafists account for 1% of Muslims in the country, but all you hear about is their message, the messages on social media," Valls declared in a closing address in Paris to a conference on the populist exploitation of Islamism in Europe.

"There is an activist minority of Salafist groups that is winning the ideological and cultural war," he added, endorsing the claim of his Urban Affairs Minister Patrick Kanner that "around a hundred" French neighborhoods presented "similarities" to the Molenbeek district of Brussels, reputed to be a jihadist enclave, although deeming that "comparisons are not easy to make."

The Prime Minister had earlier stirred controversy by speaking of "geographical, social and ethnic apartheid” after the January 2015 attacks in Paris. He reckoned that in some districts in France "an essential job of reconquest of the secular republic" was needed.

The latest figures on operations enabled by the state of emergency show that these words are finally being translated into action: 3,549 police raids, 407 people placed under house arrest, 743 arms caches seized, 395 arrests and 344 people placed in detention.

One of the mosques closed was described by Interior Minister Bernard Cazenuve as "a hotbed of radical ideology." The closure of the Lagny-sur-Marne mosque by administrative decree in December 2015 was confirmed by the Council of State, France’s highest court, in February 2016.

The mosque, 20 miles east of Paris, had been frequented by around 200 people. During the raid, police discovered a handgun, documents on jihad and a clandestine Koranic nursery school. Nine members of the congregation were placed under house arrest and 22 more were barred from leaving France.

The mosque was run by the local Muslim Association, which managed to overturn the Council of State ruling on a technicality. The government responded by initiating proceedings to dissolve the Muslim Association, claiming it was promoting radical Islamic ideology and organizing travel for jihadists to Iraq and Syria. Mohamed Hammoumi, the 34 year-old Salafist Imam who ran the mosque until his departure for Egypt in 2014, continued to direct operations from there and acted as a go-between for the jihadists travelling from France to the combat zones.

French law enables the government to dissolve by decree, i.e. with no legal proceedings, associations whose activities are considered as amounting to a combat unit, a militia or a group agitating against the French Republic. The decision rests with the Council of State.

The role played by Muslim associations and mosques in the nationwide ecosystem of radical Islam is not just a recent discovery. The problem is that up until the 2015 attacks, nothing was done to stamp out these vectors of terror, and the few public figures who spoke out about the danger were branded as fascists, racists and Islamophobes.

At the same time, the criminals who transitioned from crime to jihad benefited from the lenience of French courts.

Ismaël Omar Mostefai, one of the Bataclan jihadists, had eight criminal convictions between 2004 and 2008 but never did any time in prison. In 2010 he was registered on the French anti-terrorism database for radicalization. He was a regular attendee at the Lucé mosque next to the historic town of Chartres. In 2004 the construction of this mosque led to demonstrations by local residents. A comment made at the time by

Philippe Loiseau, a municipal politician, has turned out to be prophetic:

"I fear that this mosque will be a hotbed of radicalization that will pose a dangerous risk for the population."

Twelve years and hundreds of deaths and injuries later, the French government has rolled out its strategy to tackle the existential threat that radical Islam poses to the country. Prime Minister Valls unveiled a new plan at a cabinet meeting on May 9. It consists of 30 existing and 50 new measures focused on six areas:

1. Prevention and detection of youth radicalization

2. Creation of deradicalization centres

3. Enhanced surveillance in prisons

4. Life sentences for perpetrators of terrorist attacks

5. A central administrative command to co-ordinate local actions against jihadism

6. Suspension of welfare payments for jihadists who travel to combat zones

The 30 existing measures incorporated in this new plan were rolled out at a cabinet meeting in April 2014 by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. The stated objectives were to prevent French citizens from leaving to wage jihad abroad and combat the radicalization of French Muslim youth. Two years later, these measures have proven to be ineffective. Time will tell if the 50 new measures will eradicate the threat, but it may be a case of locking the stable door after the horses have bolted.

The notion that “deradicalization,” whether in the form of prevention or rehabilitation, will stem the tide of radical Islam sweeping through France seems rather naïve. It is like telling young people not to use drugs or putting a junkie through rehab in the hope that he will never shoot up again. Half a century of measures to fight drug addiction have not solved that problem and these measures designed to combat radical Islam are likely to be as ineffective.

Radical threats require radical solutions involving measures that hurt, such as the police operations enabled by the current state of emergency. The French government’s soft, long-term strategy indicates ideological weakness and the absence of a will to fight the enemy. The enemy is global political Islam and not just a few thousand deviants that need to be neutralized or rehabilitated.

Islamic Extremism in France Part III: Stemming the Tide

Islamic Extremism in France Part IV: Crime and Immigration

The connection between juvenile delinquency, violent crime and jihadism is beyond any doubt.

BY LESLIE SHAW Wed, May 25, 2016

French policemen in front of the Hyper Cacher supermarket, the site of an Islamist attack by Amedy Coulibaly,
who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. Coulibaly, the son of African immigrants from Mali, was a close friend of
Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi (whom he had met in jail in 2005), the gunmen in the Charlie Hebdo attack.
The Kouachi brothers were sons of Algerian immigrants.

French civil servants are forbidden by law from voicing opinions that are not in line with government policy and can only express their views anonymously. In October 2015, a group of senior civil servants known as Plessis published an op-ed in the Figaro newspaper attacking the impotence of government policy and pernicious media propaganda on the issue of illegal migrants.

"This impotence, coupled with a moralizing media discourse, is increasingly disconnected from the will of the French people, who have been subject for several decades to the disorder caused by uncontrolled immigration, are worried about the threat of terrorism and demand protection and security. It is striking to observe that the current non-stop media blitz, verging on moral bullying, has failed to convince the French people."

The disorder referred to is an omnipresent reality in France, most notably in the legal system.

In March 2015, the Administrative Court building in Toulouse was ransacked by Islamic extremists who scrawled "The Prophet Will Judge You" on the walls. One third of the 6,000 cases currently being judged by the Toulouse Administrative

Court relate to illegal aliens and 30% of those are challenges to deportation orders. The attack was not covered in the national media and local reports underplayed the fact that it was perpetrated by Islamists.

French Administrative Courts rule on litigation between French citizens and the state in areas such as taxation, social housing, building permits and civil service employment, but in recent years there has been an explosion in cases brought before the court by illegal aliens supported by NGOs and these now account for over one third of cases nationwide.

In 2011 there were 53,482 such cases, and the figure is no doubt much higher today. This means that a French taxpayer or civil servant in litigation with the state or an entrepreneur trying to get an invoice paid may have to wait three or four years for a judgement. Challenges to French law brought by illegal aliens have thus thrown the legal system into chaos and are costing the French taxpayer billions of euros.

Other areas of the French judicial system have been thrown out of joint as a result of immigration as well. One example is the Tribunal Pour Enfants, or juvenile court, which handles cases involving minors.

Although it is illegal in France to compile statistics based on ethnic origins, it is sufficient to take a stroll through the corridors of the juvenile section of courthouses around France to realize that the vast majority of cases involve minors of North African or African origin.

Sociologists will put this fact down to poverty and lack of opportunity, but the reasons go deeper and are linked to the differing codes of socialization in the countries of origin of the parents and the host country.

These children underperform at school because the parents are incapable of or unwilling to push them to study. Poor results and truancy are common, and many leave high school with no qualification. Those who obtain a diploma are automatically accepted into university but lack the drive and ability to succeed.

Putting this down to deprivation is an invalid argument because the children of over 120,000 boat people from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who arrived in France in 1979 have succeeded in assimilating into French society and are renowned for their respectful attitude and hard work in the classroom.

Juvenile delinquency is not a problem in these communities and the reasons for this are cultural, not economic.

Another field where children of North African and African origin outnumber other ethnic groups is the Aide Sociale à l’Enfance, or child protection system. This public service deals with both juvenile delinquents and children who for various reasons have been removed from their parents.

Again, statistics are not available but one only has to go to the waiting rooms of the offices of the ASE in French cities or visit the hundreds of child care residences to realize that the vast majority of children there are from Muslim families.

I am personally familiar with the case of an 11-year old French girl who was temporarily placed in a home after being rescued from an abducting parent. Of the 35 child residents, 34 were from North African or African families. When the French child’s father sent her a miniature nativity set to decorate her room at Christmas, she was forbidden from setting it up so as not to offend the Muslim children.

The most striking disproportion is in the area of criminal justice and is reflected in the prison population, where Muslims, who represent 10% of the population, account for between 50% and 65% of inmates.

These are ballpark figures as the compilation of statistics is illegal, but again a visit to courtrooms and penitentiaries is sufficient to show the estimates are not far off the mark. Indirect methods used to calculate the number of Muslim prisoners are observation of Ramadan, first names, testimonials of imams, presence at Friday prayer and demands for halal food.

Sociologist and author Farhad Khosrokhavar puts the figure at between 50% and 80%. In his 2013 study Radicalization in Prison: The French Case, he reported that non-Muslim inmates complained they felt like they were living in a Muslim country due to the regular calls for prayer and the fact that over half the prisoners in the exercise yard were Muslim.

Whatever the real figures, the connection between juvenile delinquency, violent crime and jihadism is beyond any doubt. Most of the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism over the past 10 years had a criminal record and many were multiple offenders of a legal system that allowed them to roam freely throughout Europe.

Islamic Extremism in France Part IV: Crime and Immigration

Leslie Shaw is an Associate Professor at the Paris campus of ESCP Europe Business School and President of FIRM (Forum on Islamic Radicalism and Management).