France faces rising anti-Muslim violence. A terrorism trial won't fix it

By Hannan Hussain

More than a dozen people associated with the French far-right group Action des Forces Operationnelles (AFO) will soon appear in a terrorism trial for commiting suspected acts of anti-Muslim violence, including a conspiracy to kill 200 Muslim preachers.

The proceedings, which have been ordered but not scheduled, will focus on attacks planned between 2017 and 2018, and come as the country witnesses a dramatic rise in anti-Muslim violence since Israel's Gaza onslaught began in October 2023.

But despite being a small step in the right direction, the long overdue trial struggles to strike at the heart of a much larger problem: state tolerance for rising anti-Muslim violence in France.

The country's treatment of anti-Muslim groups and the way it approaches Muslim rights and liberties are like night and day. The AFO trial simply brings those double standards out into the open, and exposes the government’s role in contributing to anti-Muslim violence over the past several months.

Far from justice

According to prosecutors, the AFO was planning to kill 200 Muslim preachers and launch grenade attacks against Muslim community members. It planned to engage long-range shooters in a terrorist attack against a mosque in Clichy-la-Garenne, Paris and use female members to poison halal foods in supermarkets.

However, because the plans were not actually carried out, the criminal acts were reclassified as "misdemeanours," laying the groundwork for a shorter prison sentence – if any.

This decision seems risky, particularly at such a politically volatile moment. The sudden reclassification could have an empowering effect on other anti-Muslim groups that are set to face trial. Consider the "Barjols."

Its members have conflated terrorism with Islam in the past and expressed a desire to burn Muslims. Group members are now set to enter trial next month, and if the AFO's attempt at anti-Muslim massacres can be explained away as misdemeanors, the Barjols could avoid accountability through a similar precedent.

A threatened French Muslim community doesn't deserve these contradictions. Given that anti-Muslim violence has risen sharply over the past year, the state owes a concrete assurance that the freedoms and liberties of Muslims are well protected from far-right violence.

For instance, the French Muslim Council received 42 threatening letters, and over a dozen mosques have been vandalised since Israel began its war on Gaza in October. A Franco-Turkish cultural association in Loiret was targeted last year, alongside the Turkish-Islamic Union of Religious Affairs (DITIB) in southern France.

According to the Council of Europe Commission against Racism, there has been a surge in anti-Muslim incidents since last October, and Muslims wearing religious symbols were at times associated with terrorism and extremism.

Islam and the state

France is home to six million Muslims, or about 7 to 10 percent of its population. Many officials have long seen the community to be a threat to France's "secular values."

The country already has legislation that stigmatises Islam in the form of hijab bans, expanding surveillance of mosques, and tightening state control over community organisations.

Things have gotten worse since October.

Ahead of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, critics say France used the need to maintain security as a cover to crack down on its Muslim constituents.

Under French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, a system of surveillance and obstruction was used to conduct violent raids on Muslims and make it possible for French authorities to devise interventions against "any target" listed on the country's controversial radicalisation and terrorism watchlist (FSPRT).

In a recent meeting with German Federal Minister Nancy Faeser, Darmanin also pledged a closer front with Berlin to counter "Islamist extremism," while leader of the far-right National Rally party, Jordan Bardella, has promised to pass a draft law which would help shut down mosques and deport preachers that the state deems as "radicals."

It's important to note that taking actions against Muslims deemed to be a threat doesn't require incriminating evidence.

In stark contrast, far-right aggressors in the AFO trial could end up with lenient sentences. Suspects will be tried for "terrorist criminal conspiracy" against Muslims, but in a court that doesn't even have the mandate to rule on terrorism. This means they face shorter sentences, and will not be tried before a jury.

Thus, protections for Muslims seem unlikely when the state itself has impossibly higher standards for this community compared to the rest of its population.

Is France doing enough?

It would be a mistake to view the AFO trial as an actual attempt to bring perpetrators of violence to justice. In fact, it offers a glimpse of a system that is still reluctant to call it terrorism when far-right groups plot mass killings, but not when French Muslims exercise their right to peaceful protest.

Since fundamental Muslim freedoms figure low on the government agenda, far-right accountability remains a pipedream.

Look to the country's divisive discourse on Israel's war against Gaza. Paris has increasingly normalised arbitrary arrests of Muslims who demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians, targeting their right to peaceful assembly and portraying arrests as a counterterrorism imperative. More importantly, the legislation used to impose such unlawful restrictions – France's "anti-terror" law – serves far-right interests.

That's because prominent voices from the hard-right, led by Marine Le Pen, see it as a way to further expand disproportionate restrictions on Muslims and reinforce their narrative of a so-called "Islamist threat."

This is important because far-right activism against Muslims has been resonating with other violent groups, such as the Organisation of Social Armies. As "terrorism" remains disproportionately focused around Muslim liberties, French liberals and the hard right are making it difficult to call out far-right violence for what it really is.

Interestingly, AFO's desire to poison halal products in supermarkets is also rooted in the wider, state-sponsored persecution of Muslim women in France. After all, the suspects' goal was to wear niqab costumes to facilitate the poisonings. This symbolises anti-Muslim aggression and severe contempt towards women's right to choose what they wear.

Whether through a hijab ban in state schools, unlawful restrictions on full-face veils, or a ban on the abaya, the French government has helped perpetuate a glaring bias against Muslim women.

These discriminatory measures have prompted the far-right to increase Islamophobic rhetoric, and intensified racial profiling of Muslim women. Unless the drivers of social exclusion and religious discrimination are addressed, French Muslims could continue to face far-right extremism.

Thus understood, AFO's anti-Muslim plotting took place in a society that holds severe intolerance towards French Muslims. It is still unclear why France would take up a case from 2018, but show limited regard for surging anti-Muslim violence in recent months.

Ultimately, it will take more than just a terrorism trial for France to change the harsh reality on ground and create a climate of equality for its six million Muslims.

The author, Hannan Hussain is a Senior Expert at Initiate Futures, an Islamabad-based policy think tank and author. He was a Fulbright Scholar of international security at the University of Maryland, and has consulted for the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. Hussain's work has been published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, and the Express Tribune (partner of the International New York Times).

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT Afrika.

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