"The Republic must keep its promises," the head of state told residents. On the move to Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron went to the sensitive district of Bourtzwiller, one of the 47 "Republican reconquest districts". This system of daily security police, set up in 2018, aims to fight crime and trafficking by the progressive deployment of additional police resources in the targeted places. Places like Bourtzwiller, where the President of the Republic decided to display his will to fight "against Islamist separatism" and radicalization.
In this district, "associations advocated leaving the Republic, out of school, outside influences ... And that is what I call separatism," said the head of state. "Mulhouse is one of the districts where we had identified that there were real difficulties," he continued. "We must fight against discrimination, we must put meritocracy everywhere," insisted Emmanuel Macron, arrested by many residents during a crowd. "We are here for an ambition that we carry with the Muslims, which is to fight against communitarianism", underlined for his part the Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner, arrived before the president to greet the police officers of the police station where Emmanuel Macron will have lunch with the police.
Not comfortable with the term "communitarianism"
The struggle led by Emmanuel Macron is, also, and above all perhaps, semantic. Between the terms of "separatism" and "communitarianism", the head of state had decided the previous week, choosing to evoke the fight against the influence of political Islam, to use the terminology of "separatism" .
"I am not comfortable with the term of communitarianism because we are in the French nation. We can feel multiple identities, if we respect the laws of the Republic and if we are all in the nation", defends the President of the Republic. "But when in the name of a religion, or such or such external influence, we say 'there, I no longer respect the laws of the Republic', then there it goes no longer."
This "field visit" is the first step in a sequence that will extend beyond the municipal elections of March 15 and 22, during which the head of state will detail the government's strategy against radicalization and political Islam. . Since the start of the five-year term, right-wing oppositions have pressed Emmanuel Macron to assert his policy on this subject, accusing him of laxity.