The report was compiled by MPs Éric Diard of the conservative Republicans and Éric Poulliat of President Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche! (LREM). They questioned senior officials, researchers, police officers and firefighters about Islamic radicalisation.
According to French news magazine Le Point, which published the leaked information, one trade unionist from public transportation company the RATP, said some “premises are forbidden to women in terminals” and he added that “practising Muslims are targeting non-practising female believers”.
Nicolas Lerner, the head of the General Directorate for Internal Security DGSI, France’s domestic intelligence agency, warned that not only mosques were places where radicalisation took place. He said that educational environments also “require a certain vigilance”.
The results of the survey undertaken by the two deputies will only be announced on June 26. For this reason, they had relied on closed hearings, but Le Point has obtained some of the written reports.
The testimony of Aurélien, 9, who attends elementary school in Bagnolet, Seine-Saint-Denis, noted: “Mom took me to see an exhibition on the creation of the Universe with the Big Bang and meteorites. I talked to my friend Mehdi at recess, but he got angry explaining that all that was wrong and that God had created everything […] Me, I believe in science, but he did not want listen to me.”
Another respondent Hayat, who educates her two children in Seine-Saint-Denis, says she is “obliged to watch [her] children closely” to guard them against nefarious religious influences.
“One of my daughter’s girlfriends gave her … a burqa from Saudi Arabia, as well as some Wahhabi religious books , ” she recalls. “At home, my daughter began to impose religious prohibitions, to enact what was is haram (illegal) or not. I realized that she was under the influence of her friends.
And the supervising staff have also become a problem. When Hayat went to talk to a “lady of the canteen” who had refused to serve pork to her son, “she scolded me by explaining that I was a bad Muslim,” she said.
The examples in the report are numerous. Last October, says the weekly, a confidential note from the intelligence services noted an increase in the number of Islamic excesses in schools. Some students even refuse to sit next to a friend with pork on his plate.
“We have never been trained to solve this kind of things,” says Alice, a college teacher in Évry, Essonne.
The influence of Islam can be seen even in kindergartens, according to Farida. She said in northern Paris girls are separated from boys in class. The children are only 3 years old.
“Some community associations offer help with homework. But in fact, we are stuff the skulls of children with religion,” said Salima, an secular activist based in Seine-Saint-Denis.