France’s National Assembly has adopted the resolution to “place the Muslim Brotherhood movement on the European list of terrorist organizations,” despite accusations of Islamophobia from left-wing parties. The motion passed by a majority of 157 to 101 after a near-five-hour debate, the entirety of which was filled with heated arguments and across-the-board accusations of racism and bigotry.
However, from the outset, the Republican politician Éric Pauget, who is also rapporteur of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, stressed that the motion is focused on fighting radicalization and does not target Islam or Muslims.
“The Republic is not fighting a religion. It is fighting a movement; it fights the political Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood, which serves as a bridge to radicalization and prepares the ground for terrorism,” he said. “From now on, the risk – recently documented by the report ‘Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islamism in France,’ presented to the National Defence and Security Council in May 2025 – can no longer be ignored,” he added.
Pauget explained that the Muslim Brotherhood movement is not a simple religious organization but a political movement aimed at making Sharia law triumph over the law of the French Republic (or any other democracy). He added that designating the Muslim Brotherhood is necessary for preventing the risks posed by its activities.
'Exclusively targeting a political movement'
“Even if it is not directly visible, the danger it represents is very real,” he told the National Assembly. “It is therefore necessary to take operational measures to define, at the European level, a legal framework that will make it possible to fight implacably against the Brotherhood’s ideology by taking on a fight that is now urgently needed.
“Of course, this is in no way a question of targeting Islam or Muslims; we are exclusively targeting a political movement that instrumentalized religion for the purpose of conquering power and whose action is incompatible with the fundamental values of the European Union and France.”
The bill was unprotestingly spurned by La France Insoumise (LFI), France’s far-left party, which has purported Islamist ties. LFI’s Arnaud Le Gall said the motion does not fight against terrorism but is “Islamophobia” and “obviously echoes the genocidal Netanyahu.”
He referred to the Muslim Brotherhood as a “small group that has no terrorist involvement in France or Europe” and accused the sponsors of the motion of pushing the agenda of the United Arab Emirates. He was joined in his opposition by the Ecologist and Social Group’s Dominique Voynet, who disputed the claim that the Muslim Brotherhood runs a “sprawling network of schools” in the countries of the European Union.
“‘Sprawling,’ seriously? This excessive vocabulary generates fear without enlightening the public debate,” she said.
“In France, there are indeed 21 Muslim schools that are affiliated with the movement, out of the 5,700 private schools in our country – such is the order of magnitude: enough to put the threat into perspective.
“In truth, there is no evidence to establish a link between this organization and any of the offenses defined in Article 421-1 of the Criminal Code. We will therefore vote against this text.”
While several independent politicians did express reservations about the legal solidity of the motion – specifically whether the MB fits the criteria for an identifiable and structured entity directly involved in terrorist acts – most nevertheless voted in favor. The nebulous nature of the Muslim Brotherhood was the subject of significant debate.
“The absence of a unified chain of command could weaken this registration before the Court of Justice of the European Union or the European Court of Human Rights,” said the Democrats’ Maud Petit. She called for rigorous work to identify, qualify, and document the facts but said that, if the threat is real, “the response must be robust.”
A fight then broke out between the National Rally’s (RN) Aurélien Lopez-Liguori and LFI’s Ugo Bernalicis.
Lopez-Liguori said, “There are proven ideological links between the Brotherhood and Hamas, a terrorist organization,” to which Bernalicis responded by calling the former a “fascist and racist.” RN’s Julien Odoul then criticized LFI for saying that the Muslim Brotherhood is only a political party “in the same way that you said that Hamas is only a group of resistance fighters, especially not a terrorist party and movement.”
The RN’s Laurent Jacobelli chipped in with, “The Muslim Brotherhood wants to stone homosexuals; if you want to stone homosexuals, vote LFI! The Muslim Brotherhood wants to turn women into ghosts and servants to men; if you want to make women invisible, vote LFI!”
He called LFI “the henchmen of all the worst that is being done in terms of Islamism, radicalism, and foreign influence campaigns.” This was loudly protested by LFI. Various politicians then accused LFI of antisemitism, while LFI claimed that RN used allegations of antisemitism to be Islamophobic. Following this, the assembly was suspended; however, the subsequent two hours followed in a similar vein.
Many quoted Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who has called for “absolute caution” regarding the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood on the list of terrorist organizations and had said he is “personally opposed to such a measure.”
Ultimately, no LFI deputies voted in favor, and 47 voted against. The rest of the ‘no’ votes came from left-wing groups such as Socialists (25) and the Ecologist and Social Group (23). Following the adoption of the bill, LFI deputy Thomas Portes said the “Islamophobic text” had “put a target on the back of all the Muslims in this country.”