A far-right French politician launched his 2007 presidential campaign on Sunday, April 23, denouncing what he called the “Islamization” of the country and declaring Islam incompatible with France’s secular values.
“I am the only politician who tells the French the truth about the Islamization of France,” Philippe de Villiers, head of the anti-immigrant Movement for France (MPF) party, said in a Europe 1 radio interview, kicking off his campaign for the election next year.
On measures France should take to fight what he called its Islamization, Villiers said Paris should stop all mosque construction, impose a citizen’s charter demanding the strict separation of religion and state and freedom to change religions and demand strict respect for the equality of men and women.
It should also ban all Islamist organizations suspected of links to terrorism and expel any persons threatening the security of the French population, he added.
He further charged that Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport was endangered by Islamist radicals who he said had infiltrated the ground staff there, releasing on Thursday, April 27, a book entitled “The Mosques of Roissy” detailing his charges.
Villiers has stirred up controversy in recent weeks with increasingly tough statements about Muslims, which critics call racist and officials describe as exaggerated.
See also Reuters, 23 April 2006