It’s almost certainly too little, too late, but is the French government finally taking the tiniest countermeasures against the spread of radical Islam and immigrant violence? It would certainly appear so, on the surface, at least.
Foreigners legally in France could now be deported with criminal convictions.
Even those who came to France before they were 13 or those who have lived in France for more than 20 years could be expelled if they are given substantial jail terms and deemed to be a “grave threat to public order”.
If only the French actually meant it.
However, the law also includes measures that prevent authorities from placing under-18s in detention centres and gives prefects the power to hand one-year residence permits to people with no papers who work in jobs such as construction, which are known to be facing labour shortages.
And, just like that, all the ‘children’ with receding hairlines become ‘builders’.
Still, for every step backward, they’re inching half a step forward.
Friday’s ruling coincided with latest migration figures from France’s interior ministry showing the number of foreign offenders expelled from France in 2023 had risen by 10.7% in 2023 to more than 17,000, although well down on the numbers before the Covid crisis.
Asylum applications increased by 8.6% last year to almost 142,500, but at a slower rate than the year before.
At least France, unlike the gutless appeasers in Australia, is prepared to take a stand against Islamic hate-preachers (is that a tautology?).
France has expelled a “radical” imam who made “unacceptable remarks” about the country’s flag, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has said.
Mahjoub Mahjoubi appeared to call the French flag “satanic” in a video that went viral online earlier this week.
Mr Darmanin said France’s immigration reforms had enabled the swift deportation of the imam.
As Muslims are wont, he’s claiming he was just ‘misunderstood’.
But the imam denies any wrongdoing and said he had not meant to be disrespectful.
Mahjoub Mahjoubi, who hails from Tunisia but came to France 38 years ago, was an imam at the Ettaouba mosque in the small town of Bagnols-sur-Cèze, in the south of France.
He was arrested earlier this week after a video circulated online showing him describing a “tricolour flag” as “satanic” and saying it has “no value with Allah”.
Then he knows where le porte is.
French media published some of the expulsion order, which said the imam had promoted a “retrograde, intolerant, and violent image of Islam, likely to encourage behaviour contrary to the values of the Republic”.
It said his teachings encouraged discrimination against women, “tensions with the Jewish community” and “jihadist radicalisation”. According to the order, he had also referred to Jewish people as “the enemy”.
In other words, he taught Islam.
He was expelled “less than 12 hours after his arrest”, Mr Darmanin said in another post, adding that the new laws “makes France stronger”.
Well, once they get started on deporting another seven million or more, maybe.
Until then, they’re just putting band-aids on the gaping wounds tearing the republic to shreds.
