what is happening to the Collective against Islamophobia in France?
“An Islamist pharmacy. » This is how Gérald Darmanin described the Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), at the end of October 2020 in Release, announcing its intention to dissolve the association. A desire quickly materialized, on December 2 of the same year, by a taken in the Council of Ministers, when the organization had already dissolved itself and redeployed abroad. In question in particular, for the Minister of the Interior: his positions promoting radical Islam and his involvement in the hate campaign directed against Samuel Paty, this professor of history and geography beheaded in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on October 16. 2020 for showing caricatures of Muhammad to his students.
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Two years after its dissolution, however, the CCIF has still not given up its legal battle against France. The collective filed a request before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), published at the beginning of January, in which he denounces a “ disproportionate interference with his rights to freedom of expression and association” concerning the decree issued by Gérald Darmanin. In 2021, the Council of State had already rejected his appeal, judging that the association was indeed maintaining “close ties with supporters of a radical Islamism inviting to evade certain laws of the Republic”.
Belgium, land of asylum
If the former association can continue its crusade against ” islamophobia in France, it is also because it quickly reformed as a Collective against Islamophobia in Europe, by setting up its headquarters across the Quiévrain, in Belgium. “ The CCIF, which is being liquidated, has transferred its assets as well as a large part of its intellectual property and means of communication to other associations, including the CCIE (Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe), a non-profit association which was registered in Belgium on November 1, 2020 “, announced in a press release, even before the dissolution procedure initiated to meet it. In its report on Islamophobia in Europe for the year 2022broadcast on January 1, the collective thus describes a climate “ obsessive on the question of Islam during the French presidential election. In addition to putting a layer on the alleged ” arbitrary dimension » administrative decisions on the closure of mosques and radical schools, or even on the expulsion of Imam Hassan Iquioussen, described as « witch hunt “.
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The most prominent obviously appears in the figures of ” Islamophobic acts » designated by the CCIE. Out of 527 reports made last year, ranging from discrimination (467) to incitement to hatred (128) via moral harassment (59), 501 of them actually concern scenes that took place… in France . A “ over-representation ” that the collective explains by its notoriety still mainly explained in France and which allows it to reaffirm “ ambition ” loosen “ son expertise on a European scale.
Judicial jihad
Who says legal battle, says multiplication of fronts of attacks. In addition to appeals, the organization has in the past multiplied defamation complaints against media and political figures in France. In 2020, shortly after the assassination of Samuel Paty, Zineb El Rhazoui had for example been targeted for having declared that a “harassment campaign was waged against him with the help of the CCIF”. The former journalist Charlie Hebdo and Franco-Moroccan activist did not hesitate to qualify the methods of the organization of “judicial jihad” in a meeting granted to Point. Secretary of State Marlène Schiappa was accused of ” to differ ” the collective and to use its dissolution as a “publicity of the draconian law on separatism” in 2021.
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To bring all these legal actions, the collective can count on lawyers presented to its cause, like Sefen Guez Guez, whose Marianne had erected the portrait in May 2022. In addition to having defended the CCIF in its numerous proceedings, this follower of social networks and promoter of a “Music Islamism”, according to the president of Laïque Unit Jean-Pierre Sakoun, has indeed won some small legal victories. Like the annulment before the Council of State of a series of anti-burkini decrees taken in the summer of 2016. Or even, more recently, the annulment of the decrees closing the mosques of Pessac , suspected of promoting a radical Islam and a Salafist ideology », and Beauvais, closed for radical sermons.
Founded in 2003, the collective had already distinguished itself on several occasions for its rigorous discourse and its fight against “Islamophobia” in France. As the essayist Pierre Conesa explained in a column published in Mariannein 2021, it is also part of these militant associations, like Baraka City – also dissolved –, which have won by imposing this term in the public debate in France. On its website, the CCIF defined it as “ all acts of discrimination or violence against institutions or individuals because of their affiliation, real or supposed, to Islam “. The association has other notable facts to its credit. Like his opposition to the laws of 2004 on ostentatious signs of religion at school and of 2010 on the visibility of the face in public space. Or the launch of a “March against Islamophobia”, in November 2019 in Paris and during which the former director of the CCIF, Marwan Muhammad, had called on the crowd to chant “ God is big ” because he “ tired of the media passing off this religious expression as a declaration of war “. In 2016, the collective had also castigated the separatism law carried by the government of Emmanuel Macron, evoking, here again, “ an uninhibited state Islamophobia in the name of the fight against terrorism.