PARIS (AP) – More than three dozen police officers went down to a small private school in Paris, blocked the 92 students in their classrooms, took pictures everywhere, even inside the fridge and went make a grill for the school principal in his office.
“It was like they were negotiating drug trafficking,” said Hanane Loukili, principal and co-founder of MHS Middle and High School, who recalled the Nov. 17 scene.
Loukili did not know then, but a Cell team to fight radical Islam and the withdrawal of the community (CLIR) had come under inspection. The dredge devastates schools, shops, clubs or mosques to end “radicalization”. A week later, a shocked Loukili informed the students that his school was closing.
Loukili insists it is not radical, but those operations illustrate the scope of French efforts to combat extremism as lawmakers prepare to vote Tuesday on a bill aimed at eliminating it.
The MHS school had an unusual profile. He was secular and coeducational, but allowed Muslim students to bring handkerchiefs to class (forbidden in public schools) and pray during breaks. Unlike private Muslim schools in France, where handkerchiefs are allowed, MHS did not offer religion or theology courses.
Loukili and others at the school claim it was a perfect target in what some say is an uncomfortable climate for French Muslims.
Cleaning France of radicals and their breeding grounds is one of President Emmanuel Macron’s top causes in a nation bloodied by terrorist attacks, including the beheading of a teacher outside his school in a suburb on the outskirts of Paris in the ‘October, followed by a deadly attack on the basilica. in Nice.
The proposed legislation seeks to re-anchor secularism in a changing France, where Muslims are increasingly visible and Islam – the nation’s number 2 religion – is gaining a stronger voice.
The legislation, which is expected to pass the first critical vote, will also be expanded and facilitate repression.
Along with the bill, challenged by some Muslims, politicians and others, these arm-in-arm inspections risk accentuating the climate of suspicion that many Muslims feel in a country where the vast majority of Muslims have no extremist views.
Loukili, herself a Muslim, is well aware of the major problems she and her school faced related to the risks of fire, but she fervently denied in an Associated Press interview any link to her or the staff of the school that opened radicalism in 2015.
Only on December 9 did Loukili know that his situation was more serious than he thought. A statement from the prefecture of police and prosecutors suggested that the closure was part of a growing push to “fight all forms of separatism,” the word coined by Macron for extremists undermining the nation’s values in an attempt to create a “counter-society.”
Dragnet’s incursions such as those unleashed against Loukili’s school, which were initially carried out as an experiment shortly after Macron took office in 2017, have become the bottom of the presidential priority. , digging up soft spots locally to curb Islamic radicalization. They now reach across the country, with police accompanied by education or other specialists depending on the target.
In December alone, the teams carried out 476 raids and closed 36 establishments of various types, according to data from the Interior Ministry. Since November 2019, when the program reached its first year, 3,881 establishments have been inspected and 126 have been closed, mostly small businesses, but also two schools, according to ministry data.
One was an underground school with no windows or educational program, along with sports clubs where preaching and compulsory prayer are behind-the-scenes activities. Five were closed.
The proposed law and the Cell for Fight Radical Islam program, led by prefects in each region, are only part of a multi-layered operation to end what authorities call “enemies of the Republic.” Mayors of cities deemed “most affected” by the extremist threat have called for them to sign a letter agreeing to cooperate in the hunt for radicals, such as insinuating possible suspects, AP reported.
The cell to fight radical Islam would also get a boost from the planned law, which would provide new legal tools to close the facilities.
“Today we are forced to use administrative motives to close establishments that do not respect the law,” said an official close to Citizens’ Minister Marlene Schiappa, who oversees the Cell to Fight Radical Islam program and who is also a sponsor of the law proposal. , along with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.
The official, not allowed to speak publicly, was unable to address the MHS school case. Police also declined to comment.
The problems at the school started more than a year ago with security issues mainly related to the large building where he was staying. Loukili, its principal and math teacher at the school, was ordered to close the school, stop teaching and not run any future schools. He returns to court on March 17.
“I think they (accuse) us of separatism because they needed to set an example,” Loukili said, noting the school’s location in Paris, its fragile finances, and the room for maneuver given to girls to wear headscarves.
A mother who had to struggle to find new schools for her children after school closed said her son is fine, but her 15-year-old daughter, who insists on wearing a headscarf, had to switch to a Muslim school where head coatings are allowed, but where boys and girls are separated inside classrooms and at lunch.
Her daughter, unhappy with the strict weather, “returns home with a knotted stomach,” said the woman, who asked that she only identify with her first name, Rafika, to protect her daughter.
The MHS school “is a school like me, what I call today’s France,” said Rafika, a working mother who wears a headscarf. “It’s a real melting pot.”
Jean-Riad Kechaou, a history teacher in the open-air district of Chelles in the working class of Paris, sees anger in his Muslim teenage students.
“It comes from this permanent stigmatization of their religion,” he said. “After a 12, 13, 14, 15 year old teenager, everything gets mixed up and what comes out is that his religion has been totally dirty and his fingers pointed at him.”