At five in the afternoon, Cairo time (38).. France’s Decision Against the Muslim Brotherhood... The Beginning of a New European Phase to Dismantle the Organization (3)

How Did the Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrate France?

In a shocking 76-page report released in May 2025, prepared by two senior French officials at the request of the then French Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau—currently the leader of the Gaullist Republicans Party—the information and figures concerning the infiltration of France by the Muslim Brotherhood organization proved startling.

According to the figures contained in the report, (139) mosques were classified as being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, while (86) others were considered closely associated with the group, across more than (55) administrative districts.

The report considered that average attendance at these organization-affiliated mosques reaches (91,000) worshippers every Friday.

It also stated that the information collected indicates that (280) associations linked to the organization operate across several sectors: religious, charitable, educational, professional, youth-related, and financial.

The report also targeted schools affiliated with the organization, identifying links between (21) institutions and the Muslim Brotherhood, which are hosting (4,200) students this year, referring to the (2025–2026) academic year.

The report submitted by the Élysée Palace, titled “The Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islam in France,” and discussed during a meeting of the National Defense and Security Council on Wednesday, 21 May 2025, was regarded as the third phase of the war against extremist Islamic thought—a war launched by President Emmanuel Macron since his first election in (2017).

This followed the adoption of the Law to Strengthen Internal Security and Combat Terrorism in (2017), and the enactment of the Law to Strengthen Respect for Republican Values, introduced in (2021), known as the “Anti-Separatism Law.”

At the outset of the report, a preamble affirmed that the time had come to combat “Islamist infiltration” led by the Muslim Brotherhood. This movement, founded in Egypt in (1928), adopted tactics of “camouflage” with the aim of “seizing the institutions of power” in the French Republic “from below”—through “associations and municipalities”—in order to better impose the rules of life determined by Islamic law on France from within.

The Élysée explained that the report “aims to raise awareness of this threat among the general public and locally elected officials ahead of the 2026 municipal elections, and to better define and document the threat in order to prevent it entirely.”

In practical terms, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau was unable to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, “but he intended, according to this report, to strike them in their financial resources” by freezing assets, strengthening oversight of endowment funds that fuel the movement, and preventing targeted associations from transferring their properties and assets abroad prior to their dissolution—just as the association “Baraka City” had done when it transferred its funds to a British structure before the report’s release.

On the financial level, the report identified approximately fifteen suspicious funds supporting the financing of “separatist initiatives,” with some of these funds being used to finance the organization’s activities in France.

The official report stated that the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes “a threat to national cohesion.” The two authors of the report—a former ambassador and a prefect—speak of “intervention from below” by the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly in three sectors: national education, higher education, and sports. This prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to call on the government to present “new proposals” in light of the “seriousness of the facts,” to strengthen the battle against the alleged infiltration of Islamist Brotherhood elements into French society.

The Beginnings:

The report traces the origins of the organization’s infiltration of Europe, stating that:

The Muslim Brotherhood infiltrated Europe through migration movements beginning in the (1950s), following clashes with governments in Middle Eastern countries. This initial establishment formed the foundation for developing the migration of a new generation of Islamist radicals who entered European universities.

Thus, the first nucleus of the Muslim Brotherhood from the Middle East settled in Britain, Germany, and Switzerland starting in the (1950s), before moving to Belgium, France, and Italy. The leaders—mostly belonging to the educated, urban middle class—were concentrated in certain strategic cities such as Aachen or London, where they formed a “pious bourgeoisie.”

The Infiltration of France:

In France, a religious awareness emerged in the (1950s) among Muslim migrant workers, particularly around the figure of the Indian scholar and political refugee Muhammad Hamidullah, who delivered sermons at the Da‘wa Mosque located on Rue de Tanger in Paris. Under his leadership, the Association of Islamic Students in France (AEIF) was founded in (1963).

At the same time, Said Ramadan, the son-in-law of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Brotherhood, migrated and settled in Switzerland, where he founded the Islamic Center of Geneva in (1961) with support from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This center quickly became closely aligned with the emerging French Islamic Union in France, and ties between them developed rapidly.

The formation of the movement in France continued over the following decade, with contributions from two Syrian and Egyptian currents. Two students who arrived in the early (1980s), both scholars of religious sciences, succeeded in unifying them: the Lebanese Faisal Mawlawi and the Tunisian Ahmed Jaballah. Both were identified as direct envoys of the Muslim Brotherhood and are considered among the most important figures of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, founded in (1983).

Based on a political ideology that was Westernized in order to be implanted in Europe, the system of political Islam promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood combines the adaptation of Middle Eastern traditions with the prevailing traditions of the target countries of infiltration, alongside a tactical concealment of core ideas and the fundamental vision under the logic of taqiyya.

It appears that the religious tolerance practiced by the Muslim Brotherhood from this standpoint served political objectives and poorly concealed its real inability to conceive of the other within a secular society.

In France, for example, Islamic-Christian dialogue, when it includes representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, appears laden with pretense.

This was, in reality, a tactical choice by the Union of Islamic Organizations of France in its pursuit of legitimacy with public authorities. The real test came in the (1990s), as demonstrated in academic literature, in the Association of Muslims in Gironde.

In that literature, religious superiority is evident, along with contempt for the religiously different other—an attitude that is ultimately taught in Brotherhood schools accredited by the French government.

Brotherhood Fatwas:

For this reason, French society—especially intellectuals, politicians, and parliamentarians—was greatly surprised when the book “The Satanic Ideas” was published. It contained a number of fatwas included in Al-Da‘wa magazine, the official mouthpiece of the organization during the (1970s) and (1980s), particularly regarding the religiously different other. These fatwas stated that such an other has no right to build places of worship in Muslim lands, nor the right to be buried in Muslim cemeteries—an issue that astonished everyone, especially given that representatives of the organization were constantly appearing on camera in meetings bringing them together with leaders of Christian or Jewish institutions.

Tomorrow, we continue with the report that described how the Muslim Brotherhood organization infiltrated—like an octopus with multiple arms—France’s social, political, and financial institutions.

Paris: 5:00 p.m. Cairo time.