Muslim schools caught up in France’s fight to limit foreign influence
year, Sihame Denguir enrolled her teenage son and daughter in France’s largest Muslim private school, in the northern city of Lille some 200km from their middle-class suburban Parisian home.
The move meant financial sacrifices. Denguir, 41, now pays fees at the partially state-subsidised Averroes school and rents a flat in Lille for her children and their grandmother, who moved to care for them.
Averroes’ academic record, among the best in France, was a powerful draw.
So she was dumbstruck in December when the school lost government funding worth around €2 million a year on grounds it failed to comply with secular principles enshrined in France’s national education guidelines.
“The high school has done so well,” Denguir said in a park near her home in Cergy, calling Averroes open-minded. “It should be valued. It should be held up as an example.”
President Emmanuel Macron has undertaken a crackdown on what he calls Islamist separatism following jihadist attacks in recent years by foreign and homegrown militants.
Macron is under pressure from the far right Rassemblement National,
which holds a wide lead over his party ahead of European elections this week.
The crackdown seeks to limit foreign influence over Muslim institutions in France and tackle what Macron has said is a longterm Islamist plan to take control of the French republic.
Macron denies stigmatising
Muslims and says Islam has a place in French society.
However, rights and Muslim groups say that by targeting schools like Averroes, the government is impinging on religious freedom, making it harder for Muslims to express their identity.
Four parents and three academics Reuters spoke to for this story said the campaign risks alienating Muslims who want their children to succeed in the French system.
Thomas Misita, 42, father of three daughters attending Averroes, said he was taught at school that France’s principles included equality, fraternity and freedom of religion.
“I feel betrayed. I feel singled out, smeared, slandered. I feel 100 per cent French, but it creates a divide.”
Local offices of the national government have closed at least five Muslim schools since Macron came to power in 2017. Reuters was only able to find one
Muslim school closed under his predecessors.
Prominent Parisian Catholic school Stanislas has kept its funding despite inspectors last year finding issues, including sexist or homophobic ideas and mandatory religious classes.
“There was never a desire for separatism,” said Mahmoud Awad, board member at Education & Savoir, the school that lost state funding soon after Macron took office.
“At some point, they have to accept that a Muslim school is like a Catholic school or a Jewish school.”
There are 127 Muslim schools, according to The National Federation for Muslim Education. Only 10 benefit from state funding, a report from the public audit office said last year.
In contrast, 7,045 Catholic schools are funded, the report said. France’s Catholic Church says there are 7,220 such schools.
The writer is from Reuters