2023-12-05 18:10:51
The tone is rising between DéFI and MR on one side, Ecolo on the other, on the subject of the neutrality of the public service. The first accuse the second of being the relay of political Islam.
The heated debate born in Anderlecht on the subject of wearing signs of conviction in the administration seems to have installed the question of political Islam in the electoral campaign in Brussels.
Starting point, an Ecolo/Groen motion, both in the Anderlecht majority, aiming for the general authorization of convictional signs in local administration, including functions of authority. The main aim is to facilitate access to women who do not feel they can remove their veil at work. A position which was not that of their partners PS (for authorization outside of positions of authority and positions in contact with the public) and DéFI (holding a total ban), also co-signed by the PTB opposition making the political incident inevitable.
The Anderlecht initiative was all the more surprising as it was going further than Ecolo’s slightly ambiguous official position. This still defends “the freedom to wear a sign of conviction in the public service, with the exception of functions of authority for which a ban can be justified”, confirms the party.
If the amended text voted on in Anderlecht will undoubtedly have no concrete consequences, the episode is taking its toll.
Deploring a “coup de force” in Anderlecht, François De Smet, president of DéFI, denounced on BX1 “a communitarian project”, believing that Ecolo was “the relay of political Islam”. Georges-Louis Bouchez, president of the MR, spoke once more on RTL on Tuesday. “Today, Ecolo, for electoral reasons, has become an agent of radical Islamism, political Islamism,” he believes.
Forces obscures?
Facing Olivier Maingain, DéFI mayor of Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, on BX1, Marie Lecocq, Brussels Ecolo MP, denounced on Tuesday a “serious slippage” on the part of François De Smet, supported in turn by Maingain. “I know what the dark forces of political Islamism are,” he said, referring to religious pressure on certain young girls in his town. “Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating different decision-making circles,” he argued. Brotherhood entryism at Ecolo? “To ask the question is insulting, to imply it is to expose oneself to prosecution,” replied Marie Lecocq.
The Ecolo party assures L’Echo that it will not go to court. But, with the electoral climate helping, the ping-pong match becomes revealing. “This is going to be a theme of the campaign,” says Caroline Sägesser (Crisp), specialist in cults. Questions of neutrality and secularism being “more important in Brussels than in the other two regions” due to a strong Muslim presence and the weight of the secular movement in its history.
“When we invoke racism to oppose a certain vision of neutrality, we go too far.”
“When we invoke racism to oppose a certain vision of neutrality, we go too far, when we accuse Ecolo of being the supporter of political Islam, we also go too far,” she analyzes . The researcher notes the presence of the Brotherhood movement in Brusselsbut has “never seen any study demonstrating a concerted approach to imposing a vision of Islam in politics”.
Djemila Benhabib, founder of the Laïcité Yallah collective (emanating from the Secular Action Center), very at the forefront of this issue, does not agree. For her, the link between Ecolo and political Islam “is widely documented”she tweeted on Tuesday, citing several environmental representatives who “have been campaigning in this direction for years”.
While Federal Minister Zakia Khattabi spoke out “in a personal capacity” this Sunday in favor of authorizing the veil for female police officers in uniform, Ecolo seems to be deep in reflection on the notion of a function of authority with a view to the 2024 election. The party does not want to comment on the recent ruling of the European Court of Justice finding that the ban on religious signs in the administration does not constitute discrimination, contrary to what many elected officials claim ecologists.
The summary
- The president of DéFI went up in the towers this week castigating Ecolo’s communitarianism following the Anderlecht debate on the signs of conviction in the administration.
- Ecolo denies this, as well as accusations that the party is a “relay for political Islam”, coming from the MR.
- Positions seem to be hardening as the elections approach.
1701803970
#Political #Islam #emerges #campaign #theme
