French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has confirmed that the authorities targeted a list of less than a hundred preachers under surveillance following the Iquioussen case.
Several imams and leaders of Muslim associations or religious figures are targeted by the French Ministry of the Interior, according to information from the online newspaper Mediapart.
Gérald Darmanin had already confirmed on Friday evening on BFMTV, that a little “less than a hundred people” could be targeted just like the imam Hassan Iquioussen.
The former executive of the UOIF (Union of Islamic Organizations of France), Ahmed Jaballah, has been encountering, for the past three years, great difficulties in obtaining the renewal of his residence permit, according to Mediapart.
The leader of the Pessac mosque, Abdourrahmane Ridouane, who last spring won his case against the Place Beauvau, which wanted to close the place of worship, is also concerned by difficulties related to his residence permit, although it has always been renewed at previous deadlines.
“Today, there are 22,000 people that we follow, all services combined. Of these 22,000 people, 4,600, or about 20%, are foreigners, including 1,200 whom we are actively monitoring, and we have expelled 780 radicalized foreigners in four years,” stressed Darmanin in his interview with BFMTV.
“We now have many actions to expel these radicalized people, whether they are foreigners in an irregular situation, which is simpler, or whether they are foreigners in a legal situation for a residence permit, we withdraw their residence permit and expel them,” he added.
The French Ministry of the Interior will be expelling more Moroccan imams who work legally in the republic, following the implementation of “Macron’s plan” to confront “Islamist separatism”.
“Acquiring French citizenship and residing in this country for years does not mean that we will tolerate extremists,” expressed the French Minister, adding that they “ will work to expel them, and we have a ready-made list of their names.”
Darmanin points out that the main threat in France are the Islamists but he made it clear that he does not “in any way confuse radical Islamists with the vast majority of our Muslim compatriots.”
add your comment
Terms of publication : Not to offend the writer, people, sacred things, or attack religions or the divine self, and refrain from racist incitement and insults.