State-sponsored Islamophobia in France encourages violence

Al Jazeera

05-07-2025

On June 27, El Hidaya Mosque in Roussillon in Southern France was attacked and vandalised. Windows were smashed and furniture overturned; the walls were plastered with racist flyers. Earlier the same month, a burned Quran was placed at the entrance of a mosque in Villeurbanne of Lyon.
Unfortunately, virulent Islamophobia in France has not stopped at vandalism.
On May 31, Hichem Miraoui, a Tunisian national, was shot dead by his French neighbour in a village near the French Riviera; another Muslim man was also shot but survived. A month earlier, Aboubakar Cisse, a Malian national, was stabbed to death in a mosque in the town of La Grand-Combeby by a French citizen.
There has been a significant spike in Islamophobic acts in France – something the French authorities remain reluctant to publicly comment on. One report showed a 72 percent increase in such incidents between January and March 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.
There are various factors that have contributed to this, but central among them is the French state's own Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-Muslim policies.
The most recent iteration of this was the release of a report titled 'The Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islamism in France' by the French government. The document claims that the Muslim Brotherhood and 'political Islamism' are infiltrating French institutions and threatening social cohesion and names organisations and mosques as having links to the group.
The report came out just days before Miraoui was shot dead and two weeks after the French authorities raided the homes of several founding members of the Brussels-based Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe (CCIE) living in France.
State-promoted Islamophobia
With the rise of anti-Muslim attacks and discrimination in France, it is increasingly hard to believe that the obsession of the French state and government with what they call 'Islamist separatism' is not, in fact, inciting violence against the French Muslim population.
The idea that French Muslims are somehow threatening the French state through their identity expression has been championed by the French far right for decades. But it was in the late 2010s that it entered the mainstream by being embraced by centrist politicians and the media.
In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron, who also embraced the term 'separatism', called for the creation of a 'French Islam', a euphemism for domesticating and controlling Muslim institutions to serve the interest of the French state. At the heart of this project stood the idea of preserving 'social cohesion', which effectively meant suppressing dissent.
In the following years, the French state started acting on its obsession with controlling Muslims with more and tougher policies. Between 2018 and 2020, it shut down 672 Muslim-run entities, including schools and mosques.
In November 2020, the French authorities forced the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), a nonprofit organisation documenting Islamophobia, to dissolve; the organisation then reconstituted in Brussels. In December of that year, they targeted 76 mosques, accusing them of 'Islamist separatism' and threatening them with closure.
In 2021, the French Parliament passed the so-called anti-separatism law, which included a variety of measures to supposedly combat 'Islamist separatism'. Among them was an extension of the ban on religious symbols in the public sector, restrictions on home schooling and sports associations, new rules for organisations receiving state subsidies, more policing of places of worship, etc.
By January 2022, the French government reported that it had inspected more than 24,000 Muslim organisations and businesses, shut down more than 700 and seized 46 million euros ($54m) in assets.
The Muslim Brotherhood boogeyman
The report released in May, like many official statements and initiatives, was not aimed to clarify policy or ensure legal precision. It was supposed to politicise Muslim identity, delegitimise political dissent and facilitate a new wave of state attacks on the Muslim civil society.
The report names various Muslim organisations, accusing them of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood. It also argues that campaigning against Islamophobia is a tool of the organisation. According to the report, the Muslim Brotherhood uses anti-Islamophobia activism to discredit secular policies and portray the state as racist.
This framing is aimed to invalidate legitimate critiques of discriminatory laws and practices, and frames any public recognition of anti-Muslim racism as a covert Islamist agenda. The implication is clear: Muslim visibility and dissent are not just suspect — they are dangerous.
The report also dives into the Islamo-gauchisme or Islamo-leftism conspiracy theories – the idea that 'Islamists' and leftists have a strategic alliance. It claims that decolonial movement is challenneling Islamism and references the March Against Islamophobia of November 10, 2019, a mass mobilisation that drew participants from across the political spectrum, including the left.
The report that was commissioned under the hardline former Interior Minister and now Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, who back in 2021 accused far-right leader Marine Le Pen of being 'too soft' on Islam.
All of this – the report, the legislation, the police raids and rhetorical attacks against the French Muslim community – follows the long French colonial tradition of seeking to rule over and control Muslim populations. The French political centre has had to embrace Islamophobia to contain its falling popularity. It may help with narrow electoral victories over the rising far right, but those will be short-lived. The more lasting impact will be a sigmatised, alienated Muslim community which will increasingly face state-incited violence and hatred.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.