Paris suburb defies efforts to loosen Salafist grip
Woman slashes two with blade in France
TRAPPES, France, June 18, (AFP): Just a short drive from the opulence of Versailles Palace, a closed-off community of strictly conservative Muslims is posing the most visible challenge to French authorities hoping to stem the rise of homegrown extremists.
At first glance the town of Trappes, where urban renovation projects have replaced dozens of grim tower blocks, doesn’t match the stereotype of poverty-stricken enclaves offering fertile ground to jihadist recruiters.
While never quite shaking off its rough reputation for drugs and violence, the town southwest of Paris has produced international football star Nicolas Anelka and popular French-Moroccan comedian Jamel Debbouze.
These days every butcher shop in the towncenter is halal and most women at the market wear headscarves, and increasing numbers of local Muslims adhere to Salafism, a Sunni branch which promotes a strictly conservative lifestyle.
While most French Salafists disdain violence in following the traditions of “pious ancestors,” many of the jihadists who have struck France in the past three years have been associated with the movement.
And a security source told AFP that around 50 people from Trappes which has a population of 30,000 have gone to fight in Iraq or Syria.
“It’s a tragedy,” said Ibrahim Ayres, owner of an Islamic bookstore who says he himself managed to dissuade five young people from joining the Islamic State group. Authorities and locals also see the Salafist influence as behind the sharp drop in the town’s crime levels.
“In the 1970s and 80s, the delinquency rates were much higher. Mothers were relieved when they saw their children start practicing their religion again,” said Ayres, who has a white beard and a long traditional robe. “Muslims didn’t see what was behind it.”
Also:
MARSEILLE:
Two people were hurt in a town in southern France on Sunday when a woman shouting “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) attacked them in a supermarket with a boxcutter knife, prosecutors said.
A customer was struck in the chest during the late-morning assault in La Seyne-sur-Mer, outside the Mediterranean port of Toulon, but the wound is not life-threatening, prosecutor
Bernard Marchal told AFP. A woman working at a checkout counter was also cut over her eye. Both casualties were taken to hospital.
“It appears to be an isolated case by a person with known psychological problems,” Marchal said, “though that doesn’t exclude the possibility that she may have been radicalised.”