Retailleau’s Report Fuels Tension Instead of Seeking Appeasement
For the third time since the release of the French report on what it called “Muslim Brotherhood’s Entryism”, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Chems-Eddine Hafiz, has strongly criticised the French authorities’ exploitation of Islam for narrow political purposes.
This comes less than two years before the 2027 French presidential elections, in which the Muslim community is likely to be a driving force.
In less than a week, Chems-Eddine Hafiz reiterated his warning against the controversial report, describing it as “more political than scientific.” This was posted in a recorded video on Thursday evening, May 29, 2025, on the Paris Mosque’s X account.
In an impromptu but powerful speech, Chems-Eddine Hafiz said that the report on the Muslim Brotherhood, prepared by the Interior Ministry, led by Bruno Retailleau, one of the most vocal opponents of Muslim and immigrant communities, is “extremely subjective and not based on the objective facts and explanations” required in a report of this nature.
The dean of the Paris Mosque added, criticising the report, which was rejected and questioned by prominent French politicians: “In this type of report, figures are usually scarce, sources are often absent, and the estimated conclusions or speculations based on expectations are usually numerous.”
Just four days ago, Chems-Eddine Hafiz wrote an article on the mosque’s X platform, in which he strongly attacked the same report. He stated, “There are moments in history when reason falters, when the republic, despite being built on the foundations of justice and lucidity, succumbs to the temptations of obsession. The recently published report on the Muslim Brotherhood, a frightening emanation from government circles, is one such sinister proof. It is not aiming to inform, but to appoint. It does not seek to understand, but to isolate. And in this inquisitorial mechanism, the spirit of our republican charter is being assassinated.”
Continuing his attack on the report on what the French call “Islamic entryism,” Chams-Eddine Hafiz explained that the report’s primary objective is to stigmatise a community numbering millions based solely on “allegations” of influence from a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated regime on French soil. He then questioned the methodology behind the report.
According to the top official of France’s largest Islamic institution, “The report cited associations and some imams as public figures, even though these associations and figures are hardly known in France.” This observation has been made by many critics of this dubious report, which centres on 400 individuals who constitute the core of this Brotherhood movement.
While the figure of 400 individuals represents only 0.005% of the 6, 7, or 8 million Muslims in France, he then asked: “Four hundred. That’s the figure being bandied about: four hundred individuals presented as an ‘inner circle’ of influence. And because they supposedly exist, they end up casting suspicion on millions. This is the Republic reduced to its infamous proportions: from the infinitesimal, a global threat is woven. From the anecdotal, the systemic is fabricated. And from the diversity of backgrounds, practices, and histories of Muslims in France, a uniform and threatening fresco is created, where every believer becomes suspect, where every mosque becomes a bastion, where every imam becomes the spokesperson for an obscure peril”.
Hafiz also addressed the report’s confusion between “influence and inspiration, or cultural and religious attraction, which is a false political commitment,” he added; “But I say this solemnly: this report is not a security tool. It is a rhetorical weapon, wielded against a section of the French people, the very section that they would like to silence behind a curtain of technical terms and vague tables”.
The rector of the Paris Mosque explained that the report, prepared by Bruno Retailleau’s office, examines links with the Muslim Brotherhood claiming that these links are “sometimes direct, but unfortunately, these links are assumed, and sometimes they are simply ideological, all to accuse some people of belonging to the Brotherhood… and that is the primary problem for me.”
He asserted that “This report will not reverse extremism: it will fuel divisions. It will not extinguish passions: it will inflame them. And it will not strengthen the Republic: it will debase it. I accuse this report of being a work of disunity. I accuse its authors of having substituted ideology for rigour, suspicion for prudence, and injustice for justice. I accuse those who use it of preferring fear to peace. And I call on all republicans, Muslim or not, to reject this deadly downward spiral.
What further heightens the suspicions and raises legitimate questions about the report is the particular context in which it was released. It comes at a time of heightened tension in French society, just weeks after the brutal murder of a young Malian Muslim, Aboubakar Cissé, in a French mosque, according to the dean of the Grand Mosque of Paris. He expressed his regret, saying, I ask here a question, essential and tragic: why now? Why, at a time when the pain of our Muslim fellow citizens is still raw, is this indictment being published? Why, just a few weeks after the assassination of the faithful Aboubakar Cissé, killed in the middle of prayer in a mosque in France, are we opposing silence to grief, and suspicion to mourning? French Muslims, distraught, were waiting for a republican surge, a recognition, a word of compassion. It was a report. It was a pointed finger, a hurtful word, an institutionalised defiance.
The dean of Paris’s Grand Mosque expressed his regret because, instead of seeking to appease the situation and overcome the mistrust, this report further intensified the tension.
He concluded the article by affirming that “Islam in France is not a danger. It is a source of wealth. It is not a withdrawal: it is the face of France. And if the Republic wants to survive, it must, once again, open its arms to all its children”.
