French Muslim Brotherhood Group Called for Supporting Macron in French Elections

In mid-April, a French Mus­lim Broth­er­hood group issued a state­ment call­ing for sup­port of Emmanuel Macron in the country’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tions held on 24 April 2022. Accord­ing to the state­ment:

April 13, 2022 The results of the first round of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion force us to come out of our reserve. Once again, the can­di­date of the far-right par­ty is qual­i­fied for the sec­ond round of this elec­tion. The ide­ol­o­gy and pro­gram of the Rassem­ble­ment Nation­al are at odds with the val­ues ​​of the Repub­lic, the rule of law, democ­ra­cy, liv­ing togeth­er and equal­i­ty between men and women. There is an immi­nent dan­ger to see this polit­i­cal par­ty at the head of the exec­u­tive of our coun­try. Con­se­quent­ly, we call on all our fel­low cit­i­zens and in par­tic­u­lar those of the Mus­lim faith to block the far right in the sec­ond round by vot­ing for Emmanuel Macron. [Trans­lat­ed from French orig­i­nal using Google.]

Read the state­ment here.

Musul­mans de France (MF) is the French mem­ber of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims (CEM), essen­tial­ly rep­re­sent­ing the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) in France. Until 2018, the MF oper­at­ed under the name Union of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions of France. Accord­ing to French media, MF has received sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing from Qatar, a major inter­na­tion­al backer of the GMB.

Accord­ing to addi­tion­al report­ing by French media, two oth­er major French Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions, the Grand Mosque of Paris and the Rassem­ble­ment des Musul­mans de France have also come out in sup­port of Macron, advis­ing their fol­low­ers to vote for him over Marine Le Pen of the nation­al­ist Rassem­ble­ment Nation­al par­ty. All three orga­ni­za­tions were part of the French Coun­cil of the Mus­lim Faith (CFCM), an umbrel­la body com­pris­ing mem­bers from dif­fer­ent Islam­ic fed­er­a­tions that served as an inter­locu­tor between the gov­ern­ment and Mus­lim lead­ers. In ear­ly 2022, the gov­ern­ment dis­solved the CFCM due to for­eign influence.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) has cov­ered past instances of CEM crit­i­cisms of Macron for his stance against Islamism and rad­i­cal­ism, includ­ing for an Octo­ber 2020 speech on com­bat­ing Islamist sep­a­ratism. In Novem­ber 2020, the GIOR report­ed that a large num­ber of orga­ni­za­tions part of the CEM youth wing Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Organ­i­sa­tions had pub­lished an open let­ter to Macron crit­i­ciz­ing what they called his “uni­lat­er­al assault on Mus­lims, Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.”