INTERVIEW
"The Republic must keep its promises." On the move to Mulhouse Tuesday afternoon, for a field visit with the inhabitants of the sensitive district of Bourtzwiller, Emmanuel Macron announced a series of measures to fight against what the Elysée now calls "religious separatism". "This term designates an attitude of rupture with French society, and quite clearly the strategy of certain groups aiming to substitute for the laws of the Republic their own values, their own rules, in an almost systematic opposition to the republican pact", summarizes at the microphone from Europe 1 Bernard Rougier, director of the Center for Arab and Oriental Studies at the new Sorbonne, and author of the Conquered Territories of Islamism .
"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", said the President of the Republic on Tuesday. And to add: "But when in the name of a religion, or such or such external influence, one says 'there, I no longer respect the laws of the Republic', then there it does not go anymore." For Bernard Rougier, "Islam has become the religion best able to transform itself, under the action of various factors, into an ideology of struggle". "There is work by the various Islamist forces in this country to try to make each Muslim a member of an Islamist community. This ideological enterprise is very dangerous for the national community."
>> Find all of Nathalie Levy's interviews in replay and podcast here
An "accommodation policy" in the face of pressure from a minority
Bernard Rougier believes that France did not acquire the necessary tools early enough to detect the radicalization processes, at work in particular in certain districts. "We let this process go on, we deprived ourselves of the tools of analysis and knowledge. There have been few studies, general information has been suppressed, there is this temptation among the prefects to go through notables who, themselves, do not say what is happening on the ground, "lists this specialist, who also denounces a" policy of appeasement ", among some local elected officials.
"There was an old tradition of the European left which consisted in integrating foreigners, but each time that there was this effort, it was done in the name of a universalist ideal: the proletariat, the working class , international, citizenship, etc. Now, part of the left resigns today when it takes note of cultural and religious differences, seeks to flatter them to attract votes, "denounces Bernard Rougier. "Clearly, there have been collusive transactions: we benefit from the voices of a religious network and, in return, we appoint to the job or to the young people responsible for the said network."
According to him, this accommodation policy has also undermined Islamic organizations. "A certain number of notables, at the head of mosques or cultural associations, yield to pressure from the base, the most violent, and accept that a mosque be used as a platform for Salafist teachings."