Fundamentalism in French Workplace
Private employers wrestle with expressions of Islam, while study alleges criminal links.
By Sebastian Rotella
Times Staff Writer
November 26, 2005
PARIS ?- Employees set up clandestine prayer areas on the grounds of the Euro Disney resort.
Workers for a cargo firm at Charles de Gaulle airport praise the Sept. 11 attacks.
A Brinks technician is charged with pulling off a million-dollar heist for a Moroccan terrorist group allegedly led by his brother. Female converts to Islam operate a day-care center that authorities eventually shut down because of its religious radicalism.
As France grapples with the rise of Islamic extremism abroad and at home, the line between legitimate religious expression and extremist subversion can be blurry. But a recent study by a think tank here paints a picture of rising fundamentalism in the workplace, ranging from proselytizing to pressure tactics to criminal activities.
In companies such as supermarket chains in immigrant-heavy areas, for instance, militant recruiters cause workplace tensions by imposing fundamentalist ideas on co-workers and pressuring managers to boycott certain products, the study says.
Quote:This is exactly the **** what I said.
On a more sinister level, the study asserts that Islamic networks are trying to establish a presence in firms involved in sectors such as security, cargo, armored cars, courier services and transportation. Once they gain a foothold, operatives raise funds for militants via theft, embezzlement and robbery, the study alleges.
"Parallel to these sect-like risks, the spread of criminal practices has been detected in the heart of companies [with] two goals: crime using Islam as a pretext; and in addition, local financing of terrorism," concludes the study by the Center for Intelligence Research in Paris.
[...]
Conversions also result from
militant recruiting in workplaces, according to the think tank report, which is based on a survey of corporate executives, private security officials and law enforcement experts.
"The focus on the private sector is new because law enforcement does not work on it much ?- they have other concerns," Denece said. "But also, company executives have not wanted to talk about this sensitive subject.
Some were concerned about being called racists."
Quote:I can understand that. I said the same thing this article does--and was called xenophobic and the usual litany...
Denece's study cites a case examined in 2004 by Renseignements Generaux, the domestic intelligence agency, involving the discovery of
"about 10 clandestine prayer rooms" on the grounds of Euro Disney.
"I thought it was exaggerated to talk about prayer rooms," Boterman said.
"During Ramadan, they took a few minutes to pray somewhere. We made it clear that we thought the work floor was not the place to express your personal religion."
The report describes a case in which police investigated a cargo company at Charles de Gaulle International Airport with about 3,000 employees. Managers complained that a
small group of radicals had tried to gain influence by preaching to co-workers and threatening repeated strikes. Some of the activists "expressed satisfaction" with the Sept. 11 attacks, the report says.
The French intelligence official confirmed that authorities closely monitor the notable presence of Muslim fundamentalists among the many immigrant employees at the airport.
In 2002, a 27-year-old systems engineer working in the airport's control tower was abruptly barred from secure areas. Police had discovered that he was a devout disciple of a radical imam and frequented militant mosques here, in his native Morocco and in the Middle East. The Iraqi-born imam is now under house arrest, accused of hate speech.
"There are worries about the presence of extremists at the airport," the intelligence official said. "There was no link found to violent jihad groups, but [the engineer] was certainly very active in a fundamentalist movement with anti-Western, anti-American ideas. Because of the particularly sensitive job he had, a decision was made, in the name of caution, to reassign him."
Nonetheless, the intelligence official took issue with parts of the think tank report. Hard-core networks often finance themselves through small businesses and the underworld, he said.
"The most radical extremists tend to exclude themselves from corporate employment because of their dress, their behavior," the intelligence official said. "They have to resort to small business, the ethnic economy. A lot of financing comes from traffic in fake papers and armed robbery."
In fact, Denece also discusses the emergence of "gangsterrorism," in which extremists team with mafias for mutual gain. But the private sector faces a more subtle and slippery challenge from nonviolent militants, the report says.
Executives say pressure groups in supermarkets and other companies advance oppressive ideological agendas:
They pressure co-workers to wear religious garb, defy the authority of female managers and demand boycotts of products such as alcohol, pork, Israeli oranges and American brownies, Denece said.
"For French companies, the rise in power of radical Islam represents a new threat," the report states. "This trend
expresses above all a move to take control of behavior and ideas of other workers in order to impose a value system conforming to extremist ideology."
