France moves to shut mosques in move against ‘radical’ Muslim groups, minister announces
- Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said a third of the 89 places of worship ‘suspected of being radical’ had been checked since November 2020
- The authorities would also request the dissolution of the Islamist publishers Nawa and the Black African Defence League (LDNA), Darmanin said
France is moving to shut six mosques and break up several associations suspected of producing radical Islamic propaganda, Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said on Tuesday.
A third of the 89 places of worship “suspected of being radical” and flagged by the intelligence services had been checked since November 2020, he told Le Figaro newspaper.
Of those, action to shut down six – in five different departments across France – had been launched, he said.
The authorities would also request the dissolution of the Islamist publishers Nawa and the Black African Defence League (LDNA), Darmanin said.
Nawa, based in the southern French town of Ariege, “incites the extermination of the Jews and legitimises the stoning of homosexuals”, Darmanin said.
The LDNA, the organisers of a protest against police violence in front of the US embassy in Paris in June last year, “calls for hate and discrimination,” he said.
