France and the UK: Two Paths in Confronting Islamist Institutions

France’s Decisive Dissolution
In early September 2025, the French state ordered the dissolution of the Institut Européen des Sciences Humaines (IESH), a seminary long scrutinised for its links to the Muslim Brotherhood. By decree signed by President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister François Bayrou, and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, the government acted under the Code de la sécurité intérieure, citing the seminary’s role in legitimising jihad, advocating sharia punishments, and disseminating discriminatory ideology.¹ Inspections of course materials revealed explicit endorsement of corporal and capital punishments, including amputation for theft and execution for sexual immorality, while a judicial review of its library uncovered works glorifying armed jihad and denigrating Jews, Christians, and apostates.²

The Legal and Political Framework in France
The dissolution rests upon articles L.212-1 and L.212-1-1 of the Code de la sécurité intérieure, which permit the disbanding of associations that provoke violence, incite hatred, or contribute to acts of terrorism.³ This provision is part of France’s wider campaign against séparatisme islamiste, an ideology seen as seeking to create parallel societies at odds with the Republic’s secular identity.⁴ The government’s action against IESH followed asset freezes, inspections, and the seminary’s unsuccessful attempt at a self-dissolution in July 2025. Officials hailed the final decree as an “unprecedented victory against the Islamists,” emblematic of France’s refusal to tolerate institutions promoting ideologies contrary to public order.⁵

The UK’s Hesitant Pluralism
The situation in Britain could scarcely be more different. While the UK has confronted Islamist extremism through measures such as the Prevent strategy, the Charity Commission, and safeguarding regulations, it has rarely used the blunt instrument of dissolution.⁶ Seminaries, madrassas, and religious associations linked to Islamist currents have often continued to operate provided they avoid direct incitement to terrorism. The Charity Commission has disqualified trustees or frozen funds in certain cases, yet the institutions themselves remain largely intact.⁷ Even where extremism has infiltrated schools, as in the Birmingham “Trojan Horse” affair, the state’s response has been piecemeal—removing governors or placing schools in special measures, but stopping short of outright closures.⁸

Case Study: The Deobandi Seminaries
The UK is home to more than 40 darul uloom seminaries associated with the Deobandi movement, which educates a large proportion of Britain’s imams. Studies have shown that many of these institutions use curricula containing hardline teachings on gender, apostasy, and non-Muslims.⁹ A 2007 government-commissioned report revealed that while some seminaries had moderated their approach, others continued to present sharia punishments as divinely mandated.¹⁰ Yet successive governments have shied away from decisive intervention, preferring quiet engagement rather than confrontation.

Case Study: The East London Mosque
The East London Mosque and its adjoining London Muslim Centre, among the largest Islamic complexes in Europe, have frequently been criticised for hosting speakers who espouse Islamist ideology or endorse groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami.¹¹ While the institutions themselves maintain charitable status and present themselves as mainstream community hubs, reports by think tanks and investigative journalists have documented repeated appearances by extremist preachers.¹² Despite this, government agencies have avoided strong sanctions, choosing dialogue and funding partnerships over censure.

Case Study: Islamist Charities
The Charity Commission has investigated several Islamist-linked charities, including Interpal, accused by the US of financing Hamas, and Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), whose preachers have made openly extremist statements.¹³ Yet in both cases the charities continued to operate, albeit under conditions of greater scrutiny. Interpal was only finally wound up in 2020 after banks withdrew services, not by state dissolution.¹⁴ This contrasts sharply with France, where the government itself initiates dissolution of organisations deemed contrary to the public interest.

Different Conceptions of the State’s Role
This divergence reflects two contrasting philosophies. France, governed by laïcité, asserts the right and duty of the state to regulate religion when it threatens the civic order. The UK, rooted in a model of multicultural accommodation, hesitates to act forcefully for fear of being accused of Islamophobia or suppressing religious liberty.¹⁵ The British establishment has often preferred dialogue and “community partnership,” even when evidence has emerged of seminaries teaching separatist or supremacist doctrines. In practice, this has meant tolerating ideologies that undermine social cohesion under the guise of pluralism.¹⁶

Consequences for Society
The French approach, while rooted in an aggressively secular logic, at least acknowledges the incompatibility of radical Islamist ideology with the common good. By acting decisively, France has removed a seminary whose teachings promoted violence, discrimination, and contempt for the non-Muslim majority. Britain, on the other hand, risks perpetuating the presence of institutions whose influence fosters alienation and radicalisation, while official policy insists on “celebrating diversity.” The result is that the burden of vigilance falls on local communities, whistle-blowers, and occasional investigative journalists, rather than on the state itself.¹⁷

A Catholic Perspective
For the Catholic observer, the comparison highlights a paradox. France’s secular state, though hostile to the public expression of Christian faith, has shown the courage to confront Islamist radicalism at its root. The UK, historically a Christian nation and still formally established in its Church of England, appears paralysed by relativism, unwilling to distinguish between true religion and militant ideology. The lesson is clear: without an objective understanding of truth and the moral order, governments will either overreach against legitimate faiths or underreact to real threats. Only the perennial Catholic teaching on the Kingship of Christ offers a coherent framework by which religious liberty is rightly ordered and the common good preserved.

Escalating Warnings and Official Data
Public debate in the UK has recently been inflamed by commentators warning of multi-site, mass-casualty attacks and pointing to new security measures, such as the steel fencing around Parliament, as signals of an unstated emergency. Certain claims—such as the second nationwide Emergency Alert test on 7 September—are officially confirmed.¹⁸ Others, including the suggestion that a cluster of substation fires were “practice attacks,” remain unproven, with the most disruptive Heathrow incident attributed by investigators to maintenance failings rather than criminality.¹⁹ Likewise, while some voices claim “12,000 Islamists” run Britain’s prisons, official Home Office statistics report 266 terrorist prisoners as of March 2025.²⁰

The Policy Gap Persists
Even allowing for exaggeration, the underlying tension remains. Ministers admit that Islamist extremism accounts for about three-quarters of MI5’s caseload,²¹ yet Britain’s preferred tools are incremental—Prevent duties, charity oversight, and targeted prosecutions—rather than France’s sweeping dissolutions. At the same time, seizures such as the 20 firearms and drugs shipment intercepted by the National Crime Agency at Dover in June 2025²² show both exposure and resilience: illicit networks are active, but the state retains capacity to disrupt them. The question is whether Britain’s cautious pluralism can withstand the reality of a complex, multi-node attack, or whether it will be forced—belatedly—to adopt firmer measures akin to France.

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¹ Journal officiel de la République française, Décret n° 2025-912 du 3 septembre 2025.
² Ibid., inspection findings (9 July 2024) and judicial seizure order (19 June 2025).
³ Ibid., Code de la sécurité intérieure, L.212-1 et L.212-1-1.
⁴ Ministère de l’Intérieur, “Discours sur le séparatisme islamiste,” October 2020.
⁵ Le Figaro, “L’institut musulman IESH dissous pour apologie du djihad armé,” 4 September 2025.
⁶ UK Home Office, “Prevent Duty Guidance,” 2021.
⁷ Charity Commission (UK), case reports on Islamist-linked charities, 2015–2024.
⁸ House of Commons Education Committee, “Extremism in Schools: the Trojan Horse Affair,” 2015.
⁹ S. Gilliat-Ray, Muslim Seminaries in Britain, University of Wales Report, 2007.
¹⁰ Department for Communities and Local Government, The Role of Madrassas in the UK, 2007.
¹¹ Policy Exchange, The Hijacking of British Islam, 2007.
¹² Ibid.; Henry Jackson Society reports, 2010–2020.
¹³ Charity Commission, Inquiry into Interpal (2003–2019); Inquiry into iERA (2013–2016).
¹⁴ Charity Commission, “Interpal to close permanently,” 2020.
¹⁵ HM Government, “Counter-Extremism Strategy,” 2015.
¹⁶ Quilliam Foundation, The Impact of Islamist Extremism in UK Education, 2017.
¹⁷ Ibid.; Policy Exchange, Trojan Horse: A Review of the Evidence, 2017.
¹⁸ UK Government, “UK Emergency Alerts test announcement,” 2025.
¹⁹ BBC News, “Heathrow substation fire linked to maintenance failings,” March 2025.
²⁰ Home Office, “Terrorism in Great Britain: quarterly statistics,” March 2025.
²¹ MI5 Director-General statement, 2024; UK Parliament Security Committee, 2025.
²² National Crime Agency, “Arms and drugs seizure at Dover,” June 2025.