INTERNACIONAL
France clamps down on Muslim extremists by halting appointment of foreign clerics
A newly enacted law in France aims to reform how Islam is viewed by society.
The law, which bans foreign imams from operating in the country, is an attempt by the government to combat religious extremism in a highly secularized nation.
Foreign imams already in the country will either be sent back to their country of origin or take on new, lower-level positions at local mosques.
The government will appoint religious leaders and others to a body called the Forum of Islam in France, where these officials will help guide France’s Muslim communities and root out any potential elements of radicalization.
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Students attend a Koran study class at the European Institute of Social Sciences in Saint-Leger-de-Fougeret, central France, Oct. 28, 2020 (Philippe Desmazes/AFP via Getty Images)
President Emmanuel Macron first proposed the initiative in a February 2020 speech that emphasized France’s role in upholding Republican values and warned those values could be undermined by religious extremists. Notably, Macron called out the repressive treatment of women by Islamic extremists, which is antithetical to France’s Republican values of equality.
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Macron’s new initiative ends a program, created in 1977, that allowed several Muslim majority countries to send imams to France for cultural and language courses that are not subjected to French government oversight.
Macron contends Imams who are funded by foreign governments may promote what Macron has called «Islamic separatism,» or the idea that France’s Muslim community wants to replace French law and customs with its own religious laws. Critics argue the body, full of political appointees, will not truly be representative of France’s Muslim population.
Muslims gather in a room in Bordeaux for Eid al-Fitr prayers June 25, 2017. (Mehdi Fedouach/AFP via Getty Images)
«Some worry about how representative this body is of the French Muslim community, and some worry that this is a strategy for the French to control French Muslims,» Elizabeth Carter, an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, told Fox News Digital.
«A more cynical perspective would argue that this was Macron’s response to the growing popularity of the far right and an attempt for him to broaden his party’s appeal to far-right voters,» Carter said.
Supporters claim the initiative will help better integrate France’s Muslim community into society and prevent discrimination.
French President Emmanuel Macron (Christian Liewig/ Corbis/Getty Images)
France has struggled with Islamist terrorism in the past and has been a frequent target of terrorist groups. In 2015, French and Belgian nationals with ties to ISIS launched a massive and coordinated terrorist attack in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded nearly 500 throughout the city.
That same year, armed gunmen targeted the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people, with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claiming responsibility for the attack. The following year, an ISIS sympathizer drove a truck into a crowd of spectators watching fireworks on Bastille Day in Nice, killing 86 people. Fançois Hollande, French president at the time, ordered retaliatory air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria.
Marine Le Pen, president of the French far-right National Rally Party, smiles to the crowd during a meeting in Paris to launch the RN’s campaign for the European elections of May 2019. (Chesnot/Getty Images)
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The attacks, and France’s subsequent response in the Middle East, led to a steady rise in anti-Muslim sentiment throughout France. An estimated 1,910 French citizens would go on and travel to Iraq and Syria to fight for ISIS.
Riot police stand near a burning car in the La Meinau neighborhood of Strasbourg, eastern France, June 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
Much like the United States, illegal immigration has become a hot-button issue for French voters. As a secular country, it has struggled with integrating its Muslim population, leaving many feeling marginalized and unrecognized.
As recently as August 2023, France banned traditional Islamic garb from public schools, which many considered a policy to suppress Muslim identity. France passed the Upholding Republican Values law in 2021, which gave the government broad powers to monitor and dissolve religious organizations that promote values that run counter to French Republican values.
Controversially, the law allowed authorities to increase surveillance on mosques and Muslim associations, according to Human Rights Watch.
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Muslims represent 10% of the population in metropolitan France, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, and comprise the largest population of Muslims in Western Europe. French public policy focuses on promoting French national identity as a means of integrating its minority populations.
Many times, minority groups have complained that it stifles their nationalities and breeds resentment against their communities.
Incidente
Un trabajador con una fotografía del emplazamiento de Chernóbil el verano pasado. El escudo está pensado para permitir el desmontaje seguro del reactor dañado que se encuentra debajo. Foto de Brendan Hoffman para The New York Times.Informes
Se estableció una zona de exclusión alrededor de la central tras la explosión de 1986. Esta escuela abandonada en la zona fue fotografiada en 2021. Foto de Brendan Hoffman para The New York Times.Sarcófago
Para extinguir el incendio provocado por el dron hubo que perforar más agujeros y rociar agua en un espacio de humedad controlada. Foto de Brendan Hoffman para The New York Times.
«La restauración completa de las instalaciones es prácticamente imposible», dijo Siryi. «Para acercarla lo más posible a su estado original… bueno, eso requeriría probablemente cientos de millones de dólares». Foto de Brendan Hoffman para The New York Times.INTERNACIONAL
His brother’s keeper: Ilay David warns his brother, Hamas hostage Evyatar, is running out of time
Evyatar David, a music lover who dreams of working in the industry, is languishing in a Hamas tunnel, according to his brother, Ilay David.
In a recent conversation with Fox News Digital, Ilay warned that his brother and all the hostages are running out of time.
«Every week we used to play music together. That’s what I miss the most,» Ilay told Fox News Digital. He has been fighting for Evyatar’s release since Oct. 7, 2023. Ilay described his brother as «the kindest soul I know.»
On Oct. 7, 2023, Evyatar was at the Nova music festival with three other friends when Hamas’ attacks began. Two of Evyatar’s friends did not survive the attacks, while he and his best friend, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, were taken hostage.
Hamas hostage Evyatar David, left, stands next to his brother, Ilay David, in a photo taken prior to his kidnapping. ( )
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Like many other hostage families, Evyatar’s family set up a website to tell the world who he is and why securing his freedom is so crucial. On the website, his family laments that his «vibrant life» was forever changed. There are also videos showcasing Evyatar’s guitar skills.
In February, the David family received a sign of life that Ilay described as being «shocking and amazing and frightening.» Evyatar and Guy were forced to participate in a Hamas propaganda film, a practice the terror group has employed throughout the war. In the video, the two men in their 20s appear frail and tired as they beg for their lives while being forced to watch a hostage release ceremony in Gaza.
«When it was finished, I could breathe,» Ilay told Fox News Digital as he recalled watching the film for the first time. «I saw them alive. I saw that they are together.»
Ilay’s relief washed away when he watched the video a second time.
«I saw how starved they are. They are half the men they used to be. And you could see in their eyes that they are exhausted, and they are begging for their lives,» Ilay told Fox News Digital. «They are broken, both of them, broken men.»
«They saw freedom, and they shut the door in their faces. And they threw them back into the tunnels. And that’s cruelty.»
Hamas hostage Evyatar David before his kidnapping. ( )
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Ilay’s concerns about his brother have only grown since former hostages who were held with Evyatar detailed the conditions in which they were held. He told Fox News Digital that the former hostages said the two men have been underground in the tunnels for most of their captivity and were only able to see sunlight when they were taken to the ceremony. As is the case with most hostages, Evyatar and Guy are given very little to eat and have limited access to water.
«But it’s only a matter of time until — I don’t know — one of the terrorists would just… be angry or upset. So, he will decide that he wants to execute, execute Evyatar or Guy. And I don’t want to think about it, but it happened already,» Ilay told Fox News Digital, likely referring to the six hostages who were shot dead in late August 2024, just before Israeli troops were able to reach them.
A poster with a photograph of Evyatar David, who is held hostage in Gaza, is placed on a table in front of Ilay David, his brother, during a House Foreign Affairs Committee roundtable discussion with family members of hostages held in Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Feb. 12, 2025. (REUTERS/Nathan Howard)
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Ilay told Fox News Digital he has done everything possible to tell his brother’s story and to make him «visible,» including going to Washington, D.C., to meet with American lawmakers. He believes President Donald Trump has a «very big role» to play in securing the release of Evyatar and the remaining hostages.
«[Trump], no kidding, may be sent by God to save these people,» Ilay said. He cited the release of 33 hostages over the course of the ceasefire deal that only recently fell apart, and said that if it weren’t for Trump, those people would still be in Gaza.
Ilay told Fox News Digital that, in his eyes, the atrocities of Oct. 7 have not ended — they are still happening for the people held by Hamas in Gaza.
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