PARIS (AP) – Lawmakers on Tuesday passed an overwhelming proposal that would strengthen oversight of mosques, schools and sports clubs to protect France from radical Islamists and ensure respect for French values, one of President Emmanuel Macron’s main projects.
The vote in the lower house was the first critical obstacle to legislation that has been developing for a long time after two weeks of intense debate. The bill passed 347 to 151 with 65 abstentions.
Some Muslims, legislators and others who fear that the state will intrude on essential freedoms and point the finger at Islam, the religion no. But he went through a chamber where Macron’s centrist party has a majority.
The legislation gained more urgency after a professor was beheaded in October, followed by a deadly attack on a Nice basilica. The bill known as art. 18 is known as the “Paty Law,” named after Samuel Paty, the teacher beheaded outside his school in west Paris. Legislation makes it a crime to endanger a person’s life by providing details of their privacy and location. Paty was killed after information about his school was posted in a video.
The bill reinforces other French efforts to combat extremism, mainly based on security.
Critics say the measures are already covered in current laws and express suspicions that the bill has a hidden agenda on the part of a government that wants to attract right-wing voters ahead of next year’s presidential election.
A few days before Tuesday’s vote, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, the main sponsor of the bill, accused far-right leader Marine le Pen during the nationally televised debate of being “soft “with radical Islam and needing to take vitamins.
The observation was intended to emphasize that the ruling party is tougher than the far right in fighting radical Islamists. But Le Pen criticizes the bill for being too weak and has offered what she called her proposal, a tougher counter-proposal. Le Pen, who has declared his candidacy in the 2022 election, lost in the second round of 2017 against Macron.
The bill, which mentions neither Muslims nor Islam, is endorsed by those who see the need to contain what the government says is invasive fundamentalism that subverts French values, especially the fundamental value of the nation in matter of secularism and gender equality.
The planned law “which supports respect for the principles of the Republic” is called the “separatism” bill, a term used by Macron to refer to radicals who would create a “counter-society” in France.
The highest representatives of all religions were consulted as the text was written. The government’s main Muslim channel, the French Council for the Muslim Faith, gave its support.
Ghaleb Bencheikh, head of the Foundation for Islam in France, a secular body seeking progressive Islam, said in a recent interview that the planned law was “unfair but necessary” to combat radicalization.
Among other things, the 51-article bill would ban certificates of virginity and repress polygamy and forced marriage, practices that do not formally adhere to a religion. Critics say these provisions are already covered in existing laws.
Key measures include ensuring that children attend regular school from the age of three, a way of orienting themselves in home schools where ideology is taught. Other measures include the training of all public employees in secularism. Anyone who threatens a public employee risks a prison sentence. In another reference to Paty, the murdered teacher, the bill obliges the heads of a public employee who has been threatened with action if the employee agrees.
The bill introduces mechanisms to ensure that mosques and the associations that manage them are not under the control of foreign interests or self-produced Salafists with a rigorous interpretation of Islam.
Associations must sign a letter of respect for French securities and pay state funds if they cross the line.
To adapt to the changes, the bill adjusts the French law of 1905 which guarantees the separation of church and state.
Some Muslims said they felt a climate of suspicion.
“There is confusion … A Muslim is a Muslim and that’s all,” said Bahri Ayari, a taxi driver, after worshiping during the midday prayers at the Grand Mosque in Paris. “We are talking about radicals, I don’t know what. A Muslim is a Muslim and that’s it. “As for the condemned radicals, he said, their crimes” are put on the backs of Islam. This is not what a Muslim is. ”
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Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed to this report.