French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin denounced Thursday in Luxembourg a “naivety” within European institutions in the face of an “atmospheric jihadism” which “allows radicalization” and “acting out.” “We must fight without naivety against this ecosystem, against this atmospheric jihadism,” declared Gérald Darmanin, upon his arrival at a meeting with his European counterparts. According to the minister, “there is still a bit of naivety, in the institutions of certain countries or of the European Union, in the way of showing our authority (…) and in general in the fight for what the France calls for secularism.
Associations that do not respect “secular values”
“On several occasions, I alerted the European Commission to the fact that European institutions finance associations on French national soil, for which we had cut subsidies, for which we were dissolving,” he said. for follow-up. These decisions were taken because these associations “did not respect equality between women and men, because they did not respect sexual freedom or religious freedom, or because they considered that French secularism was a form of enemy”, underlined Gérald Darmanin.
“On several occasions, I had to put a lot of political energy into getting us to stop funding these associations in France at the European level,” he lamented. Paris had notably protested in 2021 and 2022 against the support of the European Commission for Femyso, a European confederation of associations of young Muslims, believing that it “does not correspond” to the “values of secularism” of France. This association currently no longer receives funds from the Commission, indicated a spokesperson for the European executive.
“A separatist ecosystem that allows action to be taken”
“It’s about a few associations, it’s not about hundreds of structures, but this naivety, I want to say it, unfortunately, it also maintains this separatist ecosystem which allows the act to take place,” explained the French minister. “We must fight against all those who maintain this atmosphere. There are radicalized places of worship, it is true, few in number, but there are some, we must fight them. There are associations which act against the interests European values (…), we must fight them,” he insisted.
European Interior Ministers met Thursday in Luxembourg, a few days after two jihadist attacks which cost the life of a French teacher in Arras and two Swedish supporters in Brussels. The French, Swedish, Belgian and German ministers took part in discussions in the morning on cooperation in the fight against terrorism.