PARIS (AP) – Lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday that would strengthen surveillance of mosques, schools and sports clubs to protect France from radical Islamists and ensure respect for French values - one of President Emmanuel Macron’s key projects. .
The lower house vote was the first critical hurdle to the legislation long in the making after two weeks of intense debate. The bill went 347 to 151 with 65 abstentions.
The broad bill covering most aspects of French life has been fiercely contested by some Muslims, lawmakers and others who fear the state is encroaching on essential freedoms and pointing the finger at Islam, the nation’s second religion. But it flew through a room in which Macron’s centrist party has a majority.
The legislation took on added urgency after a teacher was beheaded in October, followed by a deadly attack on a basilica in Nice. The bill known as Art. 18 is known as the “Paty Law”, named after Samuel Paty, the teacher beheaded outside his school west of Paris. The legislation makes it a crime to endanger a person’s life by providing details about their private life and location. Paty was murdered after information about his school was posted in a video.
The bill supports other French efforts to combat extremism, based primarily on security.
Opponents say the measures are already covered by current laws and raise suspicions that the bill has a hidden agenda from a government looking to entice right-wing voters ahead of next year’s presidential election.
Just days before Tuesday’s vote, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin – the bill’s lead sponsor – accused far-right leader Marine le Pen during a nationwide televised debate that she was ‘soft’ against radical Islam and that she had to take vitamins.
The comment was meant to underline that the ruling party is tougher than the far-right in dealing with radical Islamists. But Le Pen criticizes the bill as too weak and has what she called her own tougher counter-proposal. Le Pen, who has run for the 2022 elections, lost to Macron in the second round.
The bill – which mentions neither Muslims nor Islam by name – is supported by those who see the need to grasp what the government says as an intrusive fundamentalism that undermines French values, particularly the fundamental value of secularism and gender equality. country.
The planned law “in support of respect for the principles of the Republic” is called the “separatism” law, a term used by Macron to refer to radicals who would create a “counter-society” in France.
Top representatives of all religions were consulted while the text was being written. The main Muslim leadership of the government, the French Council for the Muslim Faith, supported.
Ghaleb Bencheikh, head of the Foundation for Islam in France, a secular body striving for progressive Islam, said in a recent interview that the planned law is “unjust but necessary” to combat radicalization.
The 51-article bill would, among other things, ban virginity certificates and crackdown on polygamy and forced marriages, practices that are not formally linked to any religion. Critics say these provisions are already included in existing laws.
One of the most important measures is to ensure that children enter mainstream education from the age of three, a way of targeting home schools where ideology is taught. Other measures include training all government employees in secularism. Anyone who threatens a public servant risks jail time. In another reference to Paty, the murdered teacher, the bill requires the bosses of an official who has been threatened to take action if the employee agrees.
The bill introduces mechanisms to ensure that mosques and associations that run them are not under the rule of foreign interests or homegrown Salafists with a rigorous interpretation of Islam.
Associations must sign a charter of respect for French values and repay state resources when they cross the border.
To account for changes, the bill modifies 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 praying during the afternoon prayer at the Great Mosque of Paris. “We are talking about radicals, of which I don’t know what. A Muslim is a Muslim and that’s all. As for convicted radicals, he said, their crimes are “being put on the back of Islam. That’s not what a Muslim is.”
Jeffrey Schaeffer in Paris contributed to this report.