display

After the latest series of alleged Islamist attacks in France, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has announced a review of 76 mosques and other places of worship.

From Thursday, the houses of God will be more strictly controlled, as Darmanin announced.

He spoke on Twitter of a "massive and unprecedented action".

This is seen as an attempt at political liberation: the 38-year-old minister is currently under criticism for cases of police violence.

Darmanin wrote on Twitter that in the course of the action 76 mosques would be "controlled and those closed where it is necessary".

The minister's environment confirmed information from the newspaper "Le Figaro", according to which 16 mosques and other places of worship in the greater Paris area and 60 in other French parts of the country are being affected by increased surveillance.

Here you will find content from Twitter

In order to interact with or display content from Twitter and other social networks, we need your consent.

Activate social networks

I consent to content from social networks being displayed to me.

This allows personal data to be transmitted to third party providers.

This may require the storage of cookies on your device.

More information can be found here.

According to information from those around the minister, the mosques are said to have partially resisted closure by the authorities or employed imams who are considered to be possible threats or hate preachers.

display

Following the recent attacks on a church in Nice, which left three dead and the murder of a teacher near Paris, the French government stepped up its crackdown on alleged Islamists.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced that he would fight radical Islamism where it caught young people - in radical mosques, outside of school or on the Internet.

The government banned two Islamic organizations that Interior Minister Darmanin believes are "breeding grounds" for extremists.

Darmanin also had a mosque north of Paris temporarily closed, which is said to have shared calls against the teacher Samuel Paty.

Before he was beheaded by a Russian of Chechen origin, Paty had shown caricatures of Mohammed in class.

Darmanin said on Thursday that there could be no question of a “general radicalization” of French Muslims.

"Almost all Muslims in France respect the laws of the republic," he said.

The 76 suspicious mosques are only a small part of a total of around 2,600 in France.

The country has the largest community in Europe with an estimated five million Muslims.

Interior Minister under pressure

display

Darmanin came under massive pressure last week for pictures of police violence against a black music producer in Paris.

Four police officers were then accused by the judiciary of "willful violence", and President Emmanuel Macron called the recordings a "shame" for France.

The government and parliamentarians then announced the revision of a "global security" bill that Darmanin wanted to criminalize filming such cases of police violence in order to protect officers from subsequent attacks.

Journalists criticized this as a massive restriction on the freedom of the press.

Parts of the security law should now possibly be transferred to another that Darmanin wants to present on Wednesday of next week.

The draft law against “separatism” is about stepping up action against Islamist tendencies.

President Macron had announced this before the recent attacks.