France's Macron issues 'Republican values' ultimatum to Muslim leaders

biko

France's struggle with extremists continues. Recently they banned extreme right wing Turkish group Grey Wolves and now they want a charter to avoid radicalisation of Muslims.

French President Emmanuel Macron has asked Muslim leaders to accept a "charter of Republican values" as part of a broad clampdown on radical Islam.

On Wednesday he gave the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) a 15-day ultimatum to accept the charter.

It will state that Islam is a religion and not a political movement, while also prohibiting "foreign interference" in Muslim groups.

It was unveiled on Wednesday, and includes measures such as restrictions on home-schooling and harsher punishments for those who intimidate public officials on religious grounds.
Each child would be given an identification number under the law that would be used to ensure they are attending school.
Parents who break the law could face up to six months in jail as well as large fines.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55001167

WrenBoy

Reaction to this will be interesting, hopefully nothing violent.
Im assuming the monitoring of school attendance applies to all children in France regardless of background. If not I wouldn't agree with singling out the children of muslims, couldn't see it state that clearly in the article. Imams to be accredited also very significant, does that happen anywhere else ?

Looks like France has run out of cheeks to turn.

Gatling

I think they are wasting their time and efforts , Islam is too entrenched to change for any country ,
It's always going to be a case of don't say boo to a Muslim for fear of a violent backlash

WrenBoy

Gatling wrote: »

I think they are wasting their time and efforts , Islam is too entrenched to change for any country ,
It's always going to be a case of don't say boo to a Muslim for fear of a violent backlash

Even if its only symbolic at least its some sort of push back.

buried

He's got a major problem on his hands if he thinks they will suddenly decide that Islam is not a political movement. Its whole very ethos is political. Everyone must do what it says in their book or you are engaging with kufr, you are in denial of 'the one and only truth', an 'infidel'. It doesn't get much more political than that.

Even if some of the moderate leaders that are based in France actually do come out and agree with this ultimatum, that the republic's values supercedes theirs, there will clearly be another whole raft of extreme violence incoming as the extremists will then begin to target the moderates. The extremists take their brainwashing lectures from the likes of Abu Musab Al Suri, through the internet, through pdf's, through online broadcasts from foreign states. Not from the moderate ones actually based on the ground in France. But if those French moderates proclaim what Macron wants them to, they are going to be a target.

banie01

Gatling wrote: »

I think they are wasting their time and efforts , Islam is too entrenched to change for any country ,
It's always going to be a case of don't say boo to a Muslim for fear of a violent backlash

I agree with this to a point.
There has to be a push to break the link between Islam and it's co-optation by Wahabbist and Salifist extremists.
There needs to be a concerted effort to ensure that M.E money flows to mosques and extremist preachers are interrupted.

France has at least the 1905 separation of church and state to use as an example in ensuring even handedness and handling objections that the state is over reaching.

Religion and freedom of worship are human rights.
The call to Jihad and for violent retribution, however, are not.
There needs to be a reckoning and an acknowledgement by senior clerics that if Islam is a religion of peace?
Peace is what it needs to spread, not incitement, violence and hatred.

Probably way too late and mostly electioneering but it would be nice to see one country in Europe put up a bit of a fight at least.

suicide_circus

You'll be told the problem is inflammatory cartoons rather than that some people react to cartoons with murder.

drogon.

Good man Macron. The brits should follow suit next.

Gatling

suicide_circus wrote: »

You'll be told the problem is inflammatory cartoons rather than that some people react to cartoons with murder.

Absolutely .

Everyone else has to change to suit their agenda and beliefs

suicide_circus

suicide_circus wrote: »

You'll be told the problem is inflammatory cartoons rather than that some people react to cartoons with murder.

I think part of problem is france introducing laws targeting muslims..

that banning hi-jab,while i can understand the logic behind it,is surely bound to have also bred resentment among muslims??


This resentment is then used to feed the extremist rethoric,a government coming in from high and demanding.x,y and z,seems a sure-fire way to harden views on all sides?



(That being said,im sure your average french muslim is sick sh1t of being associated with nutters within islam,and just wants to live their life)

Danzy

In every country where Islam grows, society eventually has to conform to its requirements or accept that coexistence is not acceptable to most of the Islamic community and especially not those who follow the religion as serious thing.

France is finally coming to realize that it must push back.

Either way, it faces a bloody future as the large hostile population in it demand submission.

joseywhales

This is just good communication. They are open to being accused of discrimination if they do not declare their position.....before they start to enforce. So long as it is the same treatment for all religion then there is no issue.

briany

suicide_circus wrote: »

You'll be told the problem is inflammatory cartoons rather than that some people react to cartoons with murder.

Yes, the latter is the problem, but you have to go further than that and ask why they think it appropriate to respond in this way. If you get to the root causes of Islamic radicalisation then you may actually be able to solve the problem while still allowing everyone else to live together in peace.

A question I ask myself in relation to this is that there was a significant Muslim population in Britain 25 years ago, but in the year of 1995, I cannot remember one news report of an Islamic terrorist attack in Britain. So, it's not simply the presence of Muslims which leads to terrorism.

So, what's changed that a young Muslim man in Britain or France says to himself, "I don't want to live a life. I want to go out and blow myself up, or stab a load of people."?

Danzy

briany wrote: »

Yes, the latter is the problem, but you have to go further than that and ask why they think it appropriate to respond in this way. If you get to the root causes of Islamic radicalisation then you may actually be able to solve the problem while still allowing everyone else to live together in peace.

A question I ask myself in relation to this is that there was a significant Muslim population in Britain 25 years ago, but in the year of 1995, I cannot remember one news report of an Islamic terrorist attack in Britain. So, it's not simply the presence of Muslims which leads to terrorism.

So, what's changed that a young Muslim man in Britain or France says to himself, "I don't want to live a life. I want to go out and blow myself up, or stab a load of people."?

I can remember hundreds of thousands of British Muslims marching on the streets of England in 1989 demanding that a writer be put to death because he wrote a verbose novel about a 7th Century Arab warlord.

That was a warning signal to the entire Western world that was ignored.

If he walked the street in the most moderate English community today, he would die.

buried

briany wrote: »

Yes, the latter is the problem, but you have to go further than that and ask why they think it appropriate to respond in this way. If you get to the root causes of Islamic radicalisation then you may actually be able to solve the problem while still allowing everyone else to live together in peace.

A question I ask myself in relation to this is that there was a significant Muslim population in Britain 25 years ago, but in the year of 1995, I cannot remember one news report of an Islamic terrorist attack in Britain. So, it's not simply the presence of Muslims which leads to terrorism.

So, what's changed that a young Muslim man in Britain or France says to himself, "I don't want to live a life. I want to go out and blow myself up, or stab a load of people."?

The first incidents of Islamic terrorism towards France actually happened in 1994/1995 when four Islamist from the GIA hijacked an Air France plane with the intention of flying it straight into the Eiffel Tower. I was in Paris in spring 1995 and the police presence was extremely noticeable. They were expecting even more attacks.

DelaneyIn

It's a welcome move.

I think it's very important to cut foreign influence into Islam in France and to make unambiguously clear that political Islam is against the laws of the Republic.

They should have done that 10 or even 20 years ago though. We should follow their lead and do it as soon as possible. If you want to live by the laws of a caravan raider from the desert, then you should relocate there. You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of your new country’s society you wish to be part of.

Notwithstanding, given the fractured nature of Islam, if there's no sign of a "reformation" in Islam, is this a forced reformation?

A clever move, you're either accepting of French values or you reject them. If you reject them, whats the sanction.
Any Imans opting in are exposing themselves and their communities to those more hardline , could cause another serious split in Islam, or is this anticipated, "turn them on each other" stuff

Sandor Clegane

One can only dream of a day where Islam is extinct from western society.

Sultan of Bling

Sandor Clegane wrote:

One can only dream of a day where Islam is extinct from western society.

One can only dream of a day where all religion is extinct from all society.

Sandor Clegane

Sandor Clegane wrote: »

One can only dream of a day where Islam is extinct from western society.

Sultan of Bling wrote: »

One can only dream of a day where all religion is extinct from all society.

I disagree, and I'm not even remotely religious now. Religion can be a force for encouraging positive behavior within society, and providing a framework through which values can be indoctrinated into groups of people. We've seen a breakdown of values in society over the last few decades with real consequences. People seeking to bring in a wide range of freedoms (from the past) but little consideration of what was needed to replace them.

Islam has been in Europe for centuries, without any problems. The issue isn't with Islam per se. The issue is with the radicalisation of followers, and the changes that have been happening in countries outside of the West... when people immigrate, often they retain links to their original national culture, and that's where the issues with Islam arise.

When Europeans were strong with their own national identities, and cultural groups, there wasn't much problem with Islam or other essentially foreign cultures. Since Nationalism has become a bad word, and Westerners are tearing themselves up destroying the accomplishments of their history (white guilt), Western nations are seen to be weak, decadent, fractured, and this an easy target for those who want to act out this way...

I welcome Macron's stance simply because it's a first step. Hopefully, other European leaders will commit to similar statements, with it being established within the various political parties throughout Europe. We need to re-establish pride in being French, German, Irish, etc. To stop this guilt over crap that we weren't even born during, nor did we have a say in what happened. We're not responsible, and we shouldn't be pandering to groups to assuage some misguided notion that it will change anything.

This all comes down to integration, and multiculturalism. In every successful country with a diverse population, there is a dominant primary culture, whose culture and laws are absolute. Zero tolerance for the belief that they need to change to accommodate others. If people want to live within the borders of that nation, they respect those laws, and culture. If you can't accept the culture and laws, leave. Or be deported, never to return.

The answer to this is simply the expectation that Europe is for Europeans, and for those ethnically foreign, who can conform to living within it's borders. That worked in the past, because these groups had no expectation of their own cultural/religious habits being tolerated... (the allowance and subsequent banning of the hi-jab)

In essence, everyone should be put on notice. Accept our cultural norms, or live elsewhere. Come back to a time where immigrants were grateful to live in a foreign nation because it suited their needs which were different from their original country... but with zero expectation that their own culture will be completely accepted. I've lived over a decade in China. I don't like the government, there's many aspects to their values, and national perceptions, I really dislike. However, I'm still a guest in the country, and likely, I always would be. As such, I respect their customs and beliefs while I live there, and behave otherwise when I'm not there. It's logical... and it should be similar to what happens everywhere. IMHO, it's only in western nations that there is the expectation that countries should accommodate the needs of foreign groups. I've lived in a variety of nations, and in all of them, westerners were tolerated, and in some cases, kept very much on the fringes (Japan).. Why is there this expectation for Western nations to be so different? The virtue signalling has gone too far....

WrenBoy

banie01 wrote: »

... Religion and freedom of worship are human rights.
The call to Jihad and for violent retribution, however, are not.
There needs to be a reckoning and an acknowledgement by senior clerics that if Islam is a religion of peace?
Peace is what it needs to spread, not incitement, violence and hatred.

I worry that the peace they aspire to is when the world is entirely muslim and under the sharia, not co-existence.

Danzy

Islam, as a word, means submission. The peace, they believe comes from following Allah's laws, the peace that that brings.

Hell on earth kind of peace..

suicide_circus

No submission, no peace.

Sand

Macron's ultimatum is doomed to failure. If Muslims are forced to choose between ill defined French "values" and their 1,400 years of Islamic belief, tradition and heritage it will be the latter every time. Islam has a tradition of tactical lying about their faith if necessary to protect Muslims from persecution in an environment where evil & corruption are pervasive norms. So any agreement with those norms may be hollow. Lets face it - the interference of the French government in Islamic teachings is foreign interference.

The focus on home schooling is also odd. The teacher was murdered as a result of what was taught in his school so it isnt a cure.

Eric Cartman

joseywhales wrote: »

This is just good communication. They are open to being accused of discrimination if they do not declare their position.....before they start to enforce. So long as it is the same treatment for all religion then there is no issue.

Saying ‘treat all religions the same’ is the equivalent of ‘all lives matter’ , the problem only exists in one barbaric violent intolerant religion

nj27

They need spies infiltrating the mosques and sniffing around a bit to get an idea where the extremists are based. That would actually make a good movie too if you were allowed to make something like that these days. Kind of like the departed but with less Rolling Stones and more call to prayer chanting.

timmyntc

Sultan of Bling wrote: »

One can only dream of a day where all religion is extinct from all society.

Great in an ideal world - but what would happen (or is happening) in the real world is that the vacuum left by religion is filled with something just as dogmatic and damaging.

Instead of putting their faith in the wacky world of religion and miracles, they put their faith in unproven "facts" and call it truth. All part of the anti-expert, anti-science sh*te going on nowadays. People want to believe something so bad that they twist the facts and shout down those who question them - sound familiar?

If everyone behaved like Jesus, things would be pretty much OK i reckon. Cheeks slapped off us, but otherwise....
If everyone behaved like Muhammed, we might have problems.

Religon itself is benign, and can be a force for "good" when taken in moderation.
Its the devout that are usually the problem.

banie01

nj27 wrote: »

They need spies infiltrating the mosques and sniffing around a bit to get an idea where the extremists are based. That would actually make a good movie too if you were allowed to make something like that these days. Kind of like the departed but with less Rolling Stones and more call to prayer chanting.

I would say I'm on it and tanning up as I type...
But I'd be afraid of going orange rather than tan...
And imagine ending up 2 tone!?
Being both tan and orange won't win me any smiles around the dinner table

banie01

banie01 wrote: »

I would say I'm on it and tanning up as I type...
But I'd be afraid of going orange rather than tan...
And imagine ending up 2 tone!?
Being both tan and orange won't win me any smiles around the dinner table

Um... you can be a white Muslim from Ireland... being a Muslim isn't dependent on skin color or nationality. Hell, they might even find your freckles and ginger hair to be a sign of Gods approval.