French “Fundamentalist” Mosque Closed: Accused of Muslim Brotherhood Ties

A Mar­seille mosque was forced to close oper­a­tions after French author­i­ties deter­mined the facil­i­ty’s Imam had fun­da­men­tal­ist views legit­imiz­ing the use of vio­lence. On 20 Sep­tem­ber 2025, The Jerusalem Post alleged that the Bleuets mosque also had ties to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. The clo­sure fol­lowed the con­vic­tion of the mosque’s imam for glo­ri­fy­ing ter­ror­ism six months pri­or. The arti­cle begins:

The Bleuets mosque in Mar­seille has been giv­en a clo­sure notice from the pre­fect of Bouch­es-du-Rhône, seem­ing­ly due to its ties to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. While the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood con­nec­tion was not explic­it­ly stat­ed, both the imam, Smain Bend­ji­lali, and the Bleuets mosque itself were described as “very influ­en­tial in the neigh­bor­hood” in a recent French gov­ern­ment report on the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. Bend­ji­lali was described as being “of a rather Salafist lean­ing but using the codes of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, and is a mas­ter of social media.” “Since 2017 and until August 2024, all the remarks made in this mosque, and in par­tic­u­lar by Imam Bend­ji­lali, lead me to con­sid­er that the con­tin­ued oper­a­tion of this mosque presents risks and con­tin­ues to allow the prop­a­ga­tion of remarks and the­o­ries incit­ing vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion,” police pre­fect Pierre-Édouard Col­liex told Agence France-Presse. “The main imam of this mosque defends a fun­da­men­tal­ist vision legit­imiz­ing the use of vio­lence,” he concluded.

Read more: https://www.jpost.com/international/article-868286

Key Points

• The Bleuets mosque in Mar­seille was shut down over incit­ing vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion and alleged Mus­lim Broth­er­hood connections.

• Ear­li­er this year, Imam Smain Bend­ji­lali was con­vict­ed of glo­ri­fiy­ing the Octo­ber 7 Hamas attack in social media posts.

• The mosque con­demned the clo­sure notice on its social media page, call­ing it “an unfair and abu­sive pro­ce­dure” and stress­ing that the mosque is a “space for prayer, social con­nec­tion, and pub­lic utility.”

• The clo­sure is part of broad­er French gov­ern­ment crack­down on Mus­lim Broth­er­hood influ­ence in France.

Government Crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood Networks in France

The Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood has estab­lished a sophis­ti­cat­ed oper­a­tional frame­work in France, includ­ing a net­work of 139 mosques, 280 asso­ci­a­tions, and 21 schools under the Fed­er­a­tion of Mus­lims of France (FMF), employ­ing what French intel­li­gence describes as “entry­ism” tac­tics to grad­u­al­ly influ­ence local insti­tu­tions and sec­u­lar gov­er­nance struc­tures. This strat­e­gy has gen­er­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant polit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy, par­tic­u­lar­ly as far-right politi­cians face legal chal­lenges for their accu­sa­tions against Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions, while cross-bor­der intel­li­gence assess­ments reveal that neigh­bor­ing coun­tries iden­ti­fy sim­i­lar pres­sure groups oper­at­ing through­out Europe.

French author­i­ties have recent­ly esca­lat­ed their crack­down against Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-linked insti­tu­tions, with Pres­i­dent Macron announc­ing com­pre­hen­sive finan­cial and admin­is­tra­tive mea­sures fol­low­ing a gov­ern­ment-com­mis­sioned report iden­ti­fy­ing a “threat to nation­al cohe­sion.” The French gov­ern­ment has estab­lished new asset-freez­ing mech­a­nisms and expand­ed admin­is­tra­tive dis­so­lu­tion pow­ers beyond legal enti­ties to include endow­ment funds, with judi­cial courts appoint­ing cura­tors for asset liq­ui­da­tion. The Defense Coun­cil imposed dai­ly penal­ty pay­ments for asso­ci­a­tions that signed the Repub­li­can Com­mit­ment Con­tract but fail to com­ply with its terms.

Exter­nal references:

• Gov­ern­ment-com­mis­sioned report says Mus­lim Broth­er­hood pos­ing threat to French values
• Macron moves to shut down sus­pect­ed Mus­lim Broth­er­hood groups in France
• French report warns of spread of Mus­lim Broth­er­hood ideology

Dis­claimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.