French president Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday announced measures intended to counter Islamic extremism in France by giving the government more authority over the schooling of children, the financing of mosques and the training of imams, reports the Associated Press.
Macron, during a visit to the city of Mulhouse in eastern France, said the government sought to combat “foreign interference” in how Islam is practiced and the way its religious institutions are organized in the secular country.
“The problem is when in the name of a religion, some want to separate themselves from the Republic and therefore not respect its laws,” he said.
Macron said he plans to end a program created in 1977 that allowed nine countries to send teachers to France to provide foreign language and culture classes without any supervision from French authorities.
Four majority-Muslim countries - Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Turkey - were involved in the program, which reaches about 80.000 students every year.