The Muslim Brotherhood in France (10)

This is the latest in our series of translations of original European articles on the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the 10th such article on France. This article comes from the conservative French news outlet, Le Point. It concerns the Institut européen de sciences humaines (European Institute of Human Sciences-IESH), which trains imams and Muslim theologians in France. According to the article, it is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. The article is translated by Fousesquawk.

A Muslim institute for training raided in the Nièvre

The investigators are interested in the undeclared foreign financing reportedly received by the IESH, an establishment that trains imams and Muslim theologians near Château-Chinon.

-By Erwan Seznec

Published 12-4-2024 at 18:00

Caption: Muslim faithful in full prayer at the Grand Mosque in Paris

The public authorities are not relaxing the pressure on the European Institute of Human Sciences (IESH) in Saint-Léger-de-Fougeret. The Nevers Public Prosecutor's Office announced on Wednesday that a raid was conducted in this center, which trains imams and Muslim theologians.

The investigation reportedly related to alleged acts of money laundering and breach of public trust, as well as possible infractions of the provisions of the August 2021 law "reinforcing the principles of the Republic" as to declaring foreign financing. IESH reportedly secretly received subsidies from Persian Gulf countries. "The raid operation was fruitful," stated the Nevers prosecutor, Anne Lehaître.

Already this summer, IESH had problems. Following inspections by the youth and sports services, the prefect of the Nièvre had issued an order imposing the closure of the vacation camp beginning July 9. The institute filed an appeal without success.

Foreign funding proven

The fact that IESH is financed by foreign interests is no secret. During a hearing before a Senate fact-finding mission in 2016, Larabi Becheri, its director, had mentioned donations from "actual persons who could be foreigners, notably from the Gulf countries". Qatar was evoked in several intelligence notes. The question was, therefore, not knowing whether these foreign fundings existed, but if the regulation governing them was respected.

Created in 1990 with the blessing of the then-French government, IESH no longer has the smell of sanctity. The initial idea, validated by François  Mitterrand (from whence came the choice of a location in the Nièvre), was to Frenchify the training of imams and chaplains.

The authorities had chosen to turn to personalities gravitating within the Mulsim Brotherhood movement, whose image at that time was not as bad as it is today. The Union of Islamic Organizations in France (UOIF, later Muslims of France), was a leading interlocutor, an incarnation of modern Islam. The State quickly became disillusioned.

Another IESH in Saint-Denis

In 1994, Fayçal Mawlawi, a Muslim Brotherhood figure in Lebanon, founding member, and dean of IESH, was banned from France due to his connections with terrorist organizations! In 1997, the fundamentalist theologian, Youssef el-Qaradawi, an ultra-radical Brotherhood thinker, was invited to the first graduation ceremony.

Subsequently, the establishment assured on multiple occasions that it had distanced itself from the Brotherhood, posing as a model Republican institution, without being very convincing. One of its teachers in religious sciences was prohibited from traveling during the Olympic games in Paris in the name of preventing terrorist risks.

IESH in Paris (in reality based in Saint-Denis), twin brother of that in the Nièvre, was the object of a temporary administrative closure in 2019. Among its former students, appears Inès Madani, condemned to 30 years imprisonment for having attempted to blow up a car near the Notre Dame (Cathedral) in September 2016.