Gerald Darmanin said state services will be monitoring and controlling 76 Muslim places of worship – 16 in the Paris region and 60 in other parts of the country, noting that some of the mosques may be shut down.

“Immediate actions” will be taken against 18 of the mosques at Darmanin’s request.

According to Le Figaro newspaper, Darmanin sent a circular to the country’s governors on the mosque inspections.

Following the murder of teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb in October, raids and pressure on Muslim associations and mosques have increased.

Darmanin said on Nov. 3 that 43 mosques have been closed in the last three years since President Emmanuel Macron took office.

France is home to the largest population of Muslims in Europe, and Islam is the second-largest religion practiced in the country after Catholicism.

The international community was shocked by the knifing of two people outside the former offices of French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo in September, the beheading of Paty on Oct. 16 and the brutal killing of three people inside Nice’s Notre Dame Basilica on Oct. 29.

The attacks prompted French officials to look for a scapegoat, and the Muslim community was targeted.

The chairperson of the Confederation Islamique Milli Gorus France (CIMG), Fatih Sarıkır, said linking terrorist attacks to Islam has caused great distress to Muslims in France.

“The biggest sorrow for Muslims in France is these kinds of vicious terrorist attacks. They are trying to find a solution to express that these attacks have nothing to do with the religion of fellow citizens who are not Muslims and not knowing Muslims very well,” Sarıkır told Anadolu Agency (AA), blaming the media and far-right political parties for fueling anti-Islamic sentiments in the country.

Critics say Macron’s government is exploiting the spate of violence to intensify his controversial anti-Muslim stance.

Source:dailysabah.com