European Commission Promotional Clip Includes Representatives of Muslim Brotherhood Youth Group

French media is report­ing that a pro­mo­tion­al video pub­lished by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion on Insta­gram includes pho­tos of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO), the youth and stu­dent arm of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) in Europe. Accord­ing to an arti­cle by Le Figaro:

August 21, 2022 For Inter­na­tion­al Youth Day, cre­at­ed by the UN in 1999 and cel­e­brat­ed each year on August 12, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion unveiled a short video (a “reel”) on Insta­gram to cel­e­brate Euro­pean youth. In a few […] sec­onds, the clip high­lights sev­er­al ini­tia­tives led by asso­ci­a­tions of young Euro­peans in var­i­ous fields (ecol­o­gy, sol­i­dar­i­ty, cul­ture, etc.), inter­spersed with frag­ments of a speech by Ursu­la von der Leyen addressed to young peo­ple, and hail­ing ” the spir­it of the new gen­er­a­tion of Euro­peans “. We also note the pres­ence […] of mem­bers of FEMYSO rec­og­niz­able by their T‑shirts with the logo of their asso­ci­a­tion. [Trans­lat­ed from French orig­i­nal using Google.]

Read the rest here.

The video, dis­sem­i­nat­ed to the Commission’s near­ly 750,000 Insta­gram fol­low­ers, has prompt­ed French Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Gérald Dar­manin to write a protest let­ter denounc­ing the recent actions of FEMYSO. The cab­i­net of the French Sec­re­tary of State for Europe, Lau­rence Boone, said it con­sid­ered “a joint approach with our Euro­pean part­ners” to stop the group’s activities.

In June 2022, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that FEMYSO had par­tic­i­pat­ed in an in-per­son Brus­sels civ­il soci­ety pan­el host­ed by the Euro­pean Parliament’s Greens Group. In Decem­ber 2021, the GIOR report­ed that a joint state­ment by 34 Euro­pean civ­il soci­ety NGOs had defend­ed FEMYSO over accu­sa­tions of extrem­ist ties by mem­bers of the French government.

A July 2022 GIOR report on Euro­pean gov­ern­ment fund­ing of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood detailed how sev­er­al Euro­pean Com­mis­sion depart­ments grant­ed FEMYSO more than €288,856.27 over ten years for var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ty projects. FEMYSO also received oper­at­ing grants under EU youth programs.

FEMYSO is also heav­i­ly fea­tured in an August 2022 GIOR report titled “Europe and the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Part 2: Lob­by­ing & Polit­i­cal Impacts,” which ana­lyzes GMB lob­by­ing efforts at the exec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive bod­ies of the Euro­pean Union.