A report on the secret activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in France, commissioned by the country’s Interior Ministry, has been declassified, Le Figaro reports. The newspaper has published exclusive excerpts from the document, which it describes as “explosive.”
The 73-page document, prepared by the special services and handed over to Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, paints an alarming picture of a country being undermined from within. The declassified version, the contents of which are revealed by Le Figaro, contains explosive revelations.
“We, the Muslim Brotherhood, are like a huge hall where any Muslim can enter through any door and find what he is looking for. If he is looking for Sufism, he will find it. If he wants to understand Islamic jurisprudence, it is here. If he is interested in sports and scouting, they are here. If he craves jihad and armed struggle, he will find that too. (…) You have come to us with concern for the “nation.” Therefore, I welcome you.”
This speech was delivered in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Ismailia (a suburb of Cairo). This frenzied preaching, which has continued unabated since then, has had only one goal: to recruit supporters for the ultimate creation of an Islamic state and Sharia law.
Almost a century later, France has become a wide-open gateway for this ideology. A shocking government report entitled “The Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islamism in France,” recently presented at the request of Interior Minister, leaves no doubt about this.
The report was commissioned a year ago by three ministries (the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior) and was initially classified as “secret.” To gather data, the authors of the report — a prefect and an ambassador — conducted 10 inspection trips in France and four trips in Europe in the first half of 2024, drawing on the diplomatic network.
Having concluded that there is a “threat posed by this ideology,” the authors of the report emphasise that work on the document “required particular caution for several reasons.”
Firstly, French Muslims feel that they are victims of “Islamophobia” on a massive scale. For a significant proportion of them, this feeling has developed into a belief in the existence of “systemic Islamophobia at the state level.”
Secondly, in “more than twenty departments,” there is talk of the infiltration of radical Islam. This is facilitated by the “complete absence of a clear structure of Muslim religious institutions.”
Thirdly, the “ongoing military conflict in Gaza, following the terrorist attack on October 7, 2023,” is having an impact. This complex situation, which has a “distinctly pan-European component,” is particularly worrying because the report reveals a “well-established system of activity by followers of this ideology,” using various methods: “the spread of radical Islam, separatism” and even “in some cases, subversive activities” aimed at destabilising the republic.
The 73-page document compiled by the intelligence services contains an instructive description of a country being undermined from within by a “brotherhood” that has created a “wide network of local cells.” The report states that “a total of 139 religious sites are linked to the Federation of Muslims of France,” which is “the main structure of the Brotherhood in France,” although they deny this, “to which should be added another 68 considered close to the federation. These sites are located in 55 departments.”
“This represents 7% of the 2,800 Muslim religious sites registered in the country and 10% of those opened between 2010 and 2020 (45 out of 447),” the authors note. According to their estimates, “the total attendance at mosques associated with the movement or close to it averages 91,000 worshippers on Fridays.”
The “inner circle” of the movement, i.e. its core, which “probably took a kind of oath” to lead this secret organisation, is estimated to number “400 people and in any case does not exceed a maximum of 1,000 people.”
“The budget of “Muslims of France” is said to be around €500,000, having halved over the past five years,” analysts say. They note that the discontinuation of the annual meeting in Le Bourget, which in the 2010s brought together more than 100,000 Muslims of all stripes, has had a significant impact on finances.
Through various charitable foundations, which the movement “resorted to en masse in the late 2000s,” as well as through a network of housing associations, “the projects of Muslims of France were financed from abroad, from Qatar, until 2019,” the report says. Ultimately, we can talk about a strong structure consisting of religious schools and thriving charitable organisations, which has created a powerful reserve of preachers. “The field of education appears to be a priority for the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which distinguishes it from its European counterparts,” the report notes.
The document specifies that in September 2023, “21 institutions linked to the Muslim Brotherhood movement were identified (18 directly and three considered close), which admitted a total of 4,200 students that year.”
At the same time, “only five Muslim educational institutions have a co-operation agreement with the state, three of which are affiliated with the National Federation of Private Muslim Education (Fédération nationale de l’enseignement privé musulman, FNEM),” the document says.
In particular, it provides information on the situation at the Ibn Rushd Lycée in Lille, which prefect demanded the termination of the co-operation agreement with the state. This lycée, which is referred to as “the flagship institution of Muslim education in France,” was the subject of an audit by the regional audit office. It “revealed the receipt of illegal funding in the form of loans with subsequent debt write-offs from neighbouring mosques and the Villeneuve-d’Asque Islamic Centre, which is funded by Kuwait, Qatar and Egypt.”
“Serious shortcomings in the educational materials provided to students” and the presence of works “which content is contrary to republican values” were also identified. These include, in particular, works by Imam Ikiussen, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was once placed on a list of people posing a threat to national security and deported to Morocco.
There is also “Imam al-Nawawi’s 40 Hadith” which promotes “the prohibition of women from having contact with men, undergoing medical examinations by male doctors, the prohibition of apostasy under penalty of death, and the supremacy of divine laws over all others.”
The authors of the report point out that over the past two years, the French Ministry of Higher Education has recorded an increase in the number of alerts related to the financing of projects “contrary to republican values and related to radical Islamism.”
Earlier, Le Figaro reported that France would soon present to the European Commission measures and objections to subsidising organisations that do not share the values of the European Union. According to the newspaper, citing a source familiar with the matter, this move by Paris was prompted by “regular scandals” over EU funding for Islamist organisations, which are taking advantage of the European Commission’s “naivety.” The publication noted that European subsidies are granted to organisations whose activities are in line with “EU values.”
