French Deputy Minister Criticizes EU Equality Commissioner Over Meeting With Muslim Brotherhood Youth Group

French media is report­ing that the French Deputy Min­is­ter for Cit­i­zen­ship, has strong­ly crit­i­cized a recent Brus­sels meet­ing of the EU Equal­i­ty Com­mis­sion­er with the Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO). Accord­ing to an arti­cle in Le Parisien:

Novem­ber 22, 2021 Mar­lène Schi­ap­pa did not hide her aston­ish­ment. The Min­is­ter Del­e­gate in charge of Cit­i­zen­ship said she was sur­prised on Mon­day by the links between the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion­er for Equal­i­ty Hele­na Dal­li and Femyso, a Euro­pean con­fed­er­a­tion of asso­ci­a­tions of young Mus­lims that she described as a “false nose of Islamism”. [Trans­lat­ed from French orig­i­nal using Google.]

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In an inter­view with a French radio sta­tion, Schi­ap­pa said she was “quite shocked” by FEMYSO’s pres­ence in Brus­sels and that she, togeth­er with the French Sec­re­tary of State for Euro­pean Affairs, decid­ed to refer the mat­ter to the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. The French Sec­re­tary of State for Euro­pean Affairs also called the meet­ing “absurd.” The youth asso­ci­a­tion had met with Dal­li on 18 Novem­ber to dis­cuss “the sit­u­a­tion of young Mus­lims in Europe and the chal­lenges expe­ri­enced as a result of stereo­typ­ing, dis­crim­i­na­tion and out­right hatred,” as Dal­li tweet­ed. A spokesper­son in Dalli’s cab­i­net said that Dal­li met with FEMYSO “upon their request.”

FEMYSO is the youth/student arm of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims, for­mer­ly known as the Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe, known to rep­re­sent the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. One of the impor­tant lead­ers of FEMYSO over the years has been Ger­man Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Ibrahim El-Zay­at, and in recent times, its lead­er­ship has also been drawn from the fam­i­ly of impor­tant Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers. Almost all of the FEMYSO mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions are also tied to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. Over the years, FEMYSO has devel­oped rela­tion­ships with the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, and many oth­er sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tions at the Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al levels.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) recent­ly report­ed that FEMYSO had elect­ed a new Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee for 2021–2023. The new FEMYSO Pres­i­dent Hande Tan­er and out­go­ing Pres­i­dent Abdel­rah­man Rizk par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Brus­sels meet­ing with Hele­na Dalli.