While gangs of disaffected youths, mostly from Muslim families, continue to rampage, burning thousands of cars and ransacking entire neighborhoods, some of these organizations are positioning themselves as mediators who can bring back the order the government has been unable to restore.These groups don't preach violence, but they do advocate something that is troubling Europe's secular democracies: that Muslims should identify themselves with their religion rather than as citizens. Effectively, they are promoting a separate society within society and that brand of Islamist philosophy is seeping into many parts of Western Europe. Countries from France and Germany to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands haven't succeeded in integrating their Muslim minorities -- and Islamic organizations have carefully positioned themselves to fill the breach.
The riots "are a blessing for them because it gives them the role of intermediary," says Gilles Kepel, a scholar who has studied and written extensively about the rise of Islam in France. That, in turn, puts them in a stronger position "to force concessions from the state," such as demanding a repeal of the law France passed last year banning headscarves from public schools, he says.
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As France has failed to integrate these immigrants, Islam has filled the void. In many Paris suburbs, women now wear headscarves. Those who don't are often harassed. At school, Muslim boys increasingly refuse to mix with girls during sports activities or on field trips. Hospitals are under pressure not to have male and female patients in the same wards. Such disagreements are walling off Muslims from France's staunchly secular society and creating a ripe environment for radical Islamic groups.
The violence in France is a stark reminder that reaching an accommodation with Islam is one of the Continent's most pressing problems. Low birth rates and Europe's geographic position just north of the Muslim world means that increasing numbers of its citizens will be Muslim in the future. Muslims account for an estimated 5% or more of the populations of France, the Netherlands and the U.K., and are heavily concentrated in and around big cities.
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For the first time, on Saturday night the arson spread to Paris proper, where 35 vehicles were burned. Police found a makeshift gasoline bomb-making factory in one suburb of the capital. It was filled with 150 bottles, gallons of fuel and hoods to hide rioters' faces. More than 800 people have been arrested across France since the unrest started.
There isn't anything inherently Muslim about the violence: Islamic groups appear to have played no part in stirring up the trouble, and few rioters seem to be using Islam to justify their attacks. On the contrary, many Islamic groups say they are trying to calm things down. But the bleak projects that ring Paris and France's other big cities have long been fertile recruiting grounds for Islamic groups that preach a fundamentalist form of the religion that is often hard to square with Europe's pluralistic societies.
While their mediation seems helpful in the short-term, these Islamic organizations end up further alienating Muslim youths from mainstream society because they teach an ideology that is in conflict with France's secular ideals, says Malek Boutih, a former head of human-rights group SOS Racism. "They recruit, they teach the Quran and they try to orient everything around the mosque," says Mr. Boutih. "That's it."
That is especially true of the Tabligh group here in Clichy. Founded in India in 1927, the Tabligh sends its missionaries to Islam's troubled frontiers: Central Asia, Africa and Europe. Although it preaches a peaceful brand of Islam, some of its former members have founded terrorist groups and been expelled from countries like Kazakhstan for engaging in radicalism. French intelligence officials say up to 80% of Islamic extremists in France were once Tabligh members and have dubbed the organization the "antechamber of fundamentalism."
The group's influence has grown even as France has tried to integrate Islam by giving Muslims a political voice. In 2003, the government set up a body meant to represent the Muslim community to the state, called the French Council of the Muslim Faith, and held elections to it. The government hoped the council would be a moderating influence. Instead, it has been riven by divisions and has given official representation to some of the most radical Islamic groups in the country.
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