GATESTONE
By Guy Milliere
May 12, 2014

….If Tariq Ramadan knows how to hide his extremism, his brother is more explicit and direct. His speech was devoted to “global threats” facing Islam; he described them as having a single source: “the Jews and Zionist barbarism,” an octopus “hiding in the shadows,” a “power that holds the global finance and the media.” He called on young French Muslims to “fight for Islam” and to go to Syria, where several hundred French youths have already joined jihadist groups.If UOIF had only a marginal influence, such statements would be already worrying. But UOIF is the leading French Muslim organization, and Hani Ramadan’s speech, like Tariq Ramadan’s speeches in 2012 and 2013, was listened to by an audience of 150,000 enthusiastic people, and viewed by hundred of thousands of others on UOIF-TV, the digital television channel established by the UOIF.

More than 8,000,000 Muslims live in France, most of whom are French citizens, and the Muslim population in France continues to grow. France is now the main Muslim country in Europe. Successive French governments can decide to expel a Muslim preacher or a recruiter of jihadist fighters; they can deny visas, but they seem unable to do more.

Although the French government denies it, it seems clear that substantial ransoms were paid to Islamist groups for the release of French hostages: $28,000,000 to al Qaeda in Niger in October 2013 and $18,000,000 to Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in Syria, on April 19.

….The number of Jews leaving France is steadily increasing. French people who have the financial means also leave the country. Most others expect the worst. Polls show that the French are now the most pessimistic people in Europe. They also show that more than 70% of the French are afraid of the rise of Islam in France: they expect that France will become a country under submission to Islam.

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