Question 23086 — foreign policy

Summary

Ms. Valérie Boyer alerts Mr. the Prime Minister about the international conference for peace and solidarity organized in Paris on Tuesday, September 17, 2019. This Tuesday, September 17, an “international conference for peace and solidarity” will be held in the heart of the French capital, in Paris. This gathering is organized by the World Islamic League (LIM), a Saudi organization and by the Foundation of Islam of France (FIF). Friday the 13th September, the interim president of the French Council of Muslim Worship (CFCM), Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Paris mosque, denounced “the instrumentalization of inter-religious dialogue in our country by foreign organizations” calling them “facts serious enough to denounce them”. The MP wants to salute the commitment of Ensaf Haidar, currently in France to denounce the holding of this conference. She is the wife Saudi blogger Raif Badawi sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for blasphemy. According to the initial program, the Prime Minister was to participate with the President of the Republic. However, during the post-Great Debate press conference on April 25, 2019, the Head of State considered that “the Government would be intractable in the face of this communitarianism which has taken hold in certain quarters of the Republic and these people who, in the name of a religion, pursue a political project, that of a political Islam which wants to secede from our Republic.” The Prime Minister claims to fight against radical Islam, yet the World Islamic League is “the ideological armed arm” of Wahhabism and more particularly of the religious diplomacy of Saudi Arabia which aims to spread Salafist Wahhabism throughout the world. The MP specifies that her Secretary General, Mohammed Al-Issa, was Saudi Minister of Justice from 2009 to 2015. He imprisoned several dozen human rights activists. They are tortured or sentenced to death. Until recently, he supported an extrajudicial assassination perpetrated by the services of his monarch and accepted the practice of torture against young Saudi women and men. His organization also signed a partnership agreement with the Islamic Organization for Education, Science and Culture (ISESCO) which had launched a strategic project to prevent young Muslims from integrating into the West. Ghaleb Bencheikh, president of the Foundation for Islam in France, announced a change in the statutes to allow it to receive Saudi “petrodollars”. In the process, he would have brought together the council of administration and decided to modify the statutes of the FIF which, until then, prohibited foreign (extra-community) financing. She asks him why the Government did not oppose it. Why such silence from the Minister of Religion, Minister of the Interior? And how is such silence possible? How much do these donations amount to and what are the rewards? She wonders if holding such a conference would be a counterpart. Does this mean that, tomorrow, other associations will be able to be financed by foreign countries? The MP would like answers to these questions. Mr. Prime Minister claimed to make equality between men and women a great national cause yet she reminds him that Saudi women are not allowed to show their hair, nor to make the slightest eye contact with a representative of the male gender. Submissive to men, they are prohibited from leaving the home, and to avoid any temptation and any desire for independence, they cannot hold a bank account. It is the man who is responsible for the household, so it is up to him to manage the accounts. Because in Saudi Arabia, men not only have the status of head of the family, but they are also guardians for their wife, their sister or their daughter (even if the latter are major). Many French media speak of a “major step forward” in the country with the authorization given to women to drive, except that no one specifies that their legal guardian must still give authorization. In May 2018, just as women were allowed to drive, the kingdom launched a crackdown on women's rights activists. At least eight women, including Loujain al-Hathloul, 29, an activist, who photographed herself driving a car just before the law was adopted, and Aziza Al-Youssef, an academic in her sixties, were arrested for dissent, with pro-government newspapers calling them "traitors of the Nation" and accusing them of having "intent to undermine the security, stability and national unity of the kingdom." And how can we not talk about the death penalty for same-sex couples? Hakim El Karoui, one of those close to the President of the Republic, wrote in a 2018 note entitled “The Factory of Islamism”: “Saudi Arabia officially exports Wahhabism () through institutions that are theoretically autonomous, but which are in reality within the fold of Saudi state structures: The World Islamic League (WIL) serves as the central body. It is a diplomatic instrument of the Saudi royal family whose objective is to organize cooperation between Islamic states in different political, economic and cultural fields. Thus, Saudi Arabia's expansionist desire, supported by [oil] financing, reflects the pan-Islamist ideal of the Saudi government which seeks to have a monopoly on Islam, on discourse as well as on Muslims. THE Wahhabism as soft power is a diplomatic lever that allows Saudi Arabia to exert influence on the international scene. ". France is in a fool's game with Saudi Arabia which invites it to change its behavior but which, since 2014, has been waging a silent war in Yemen. Tomorrow, with the holding of such a conference, the Government once again remains silent, passive, complacent, even complicit in the face of an Islamic organization, the LIM, which embodies an Islam that is not compatible with the values ​​of the Republic. She asks him if he will recall the preeminence of the laws of the Republic, enforceable against all, over any “divine” law, tradition or community custom; the right to change religion (in accordance with the Universal Declaration and the European Convention on Human Rights), or to have none; equality of women, including in matters of marriage, divorce, family life and inheritance; absolute equality between individuals, whatever their sexual orientation, origins or affiliations. France is not for sale! The Prime Minister speaks of an Islam in France but it is a political Islam in France and in Europe. Instead of forming a united front in the fight against radical Islamism and terrorism, he seems to prefer to increase withdrawal communitarianism, particularisms and political-religious quarrels. This inadequacy and inconsistency between his words and his actions raise the attention of the deputy. She regrets that no action or coordinated political will is put in place when it comes to Islam in France. She therefore asks him to ban this gathering.

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