“I am in fundamental disagreement with these left-wing people who do everything to dissociate fundamentalism from Islam. Islam has been radicalized for fifty years. On the Shiite side, there was Imam Khomeini and his Islamic revolution. In the Sunni world, there was Saudi Arabia, which used its immense resources to finance the spread of this fanaticism of Wahhabism. But this historical evolution took place within Islam and not outside. When the people of the Islamic State attack, they do it by saying ‘Allahu Akbar.’ So how can we then say that this has nothing to do with Islam? It must be stopped.” — Sir Salman Rushdie, author of the novel The Satanic Verses, who has been hunted to be killed by Muslim extremists for nearly 30 years.
Residents of the Paris suburb of Mée-sur-Seine complained that a mosque was blasting prayers on outdoor loudspeakers well beyond midnight each night during Ramadan. Mourad Salah, a local Muslim leader, said the city council was to blame for the noise because of its failure to provide Muslims with a larger mosque: “The ball is in the mayor’s court. Until we have a place of prayer worthy of the name, with a greater capacity, things will be difficult.”
An online petition — “Women: An Endangered Species in the Heart of Paris” — accused Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo of allowing a large swathe of the city to become a no-go zone for women. Every night, hundreds of migrants from Africa and the Middle East line the pavements to form an intimidating gauntlet for women walking from the Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est railway stations to their homes, the petition said. Shouts of “bitch” and “dirty whore” are common.
June 1. Saber Lahmar, a 48-year-old Algerian who has lived in Bordeaux since his release from Guantánamo Bay in 2009, was charged with “terrorist association” and placed in pre-trial detention. He is suspected of providing financial, logistical and doctrinal aid to French jihadists who were planning to travel to Iraq and Syria. Lahmar was arrested in Bosnia in 2001 after being accused of plotting to bomb the American embassy in Sarajevo. In November 2008, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ordered Lahmar to be released from Guantánamo because there was insufficient reason to hold him. In December 2009, Robert C. Kirsch, a lawyer at the firm of WilmerHale, which represented Lahmar in federal court, said: “We are grateful for the courage and generosity of the French people and government, and for the ongoing effort by President Obama… which will now give Mr. Lahmar a chance to rebuild his life in France.”
June 1. A group of prominent intellectuals accused French authorities of covering up the April 4 murder of a Jewish woman by her Muslim neighbor. Kobili Traoré a 27-year-old Malian Muslim, tortured 66-year-old Sarah Halimi and threw her out of her third-story apartment. The letter criticizes the Paris Prosecutor’s Office for omitting hate crime charges from a draft indictment against Traoré. They cited a recording of the incident made by another neighbor. In it, Traoré can be heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” and calling Halimi “dirty Jew” to her face. Some observers believe the authorities covered up Halimi’s murder to prevent it from helping Marine Le Pen’s presidential campaign.
June 2. The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, banned Noorassur, a local insurance broker, from hanging a sign with the words “Islamic finance” because it “poses a high risk of disturbing public order.” Estrosi said the sign was placed in close proximity to the Promenade des Anglais, the site of the July 14, 2016 jihadist attack. He said that there was a risk to both the staff and the customers and that passersby might see the sign as a provocation. Noorassur’s founder, Sonia Mariji, filed a lawsuit against the city. “Islamic finance is not incompatible with the Republic,” she said. “I am a fruit of the Republic.” Her lawyer accused Estrosi of “conveying the idea that Islamic finance is linked to Islamist terrorism.”
June 6. Farid Ikken, a 40-year-old Algerian, attacked a police officer in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Government spokesman Christophe Castaner said the hammer attack was an “isolated act.” Ikken was later charged with “attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise.” Prosecutor François Molins said that Ikken was radicalized through Islamic State propaganda he found on the internet. Molins also confirmed that Ikken, who had recorded a video pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, was a former journalist who was legally living in France as a student working on his doctoral thesis.