France closes a clandestine Quranic school disguised as a disused shop
Six-year-old girls in veils and black abayas, prayers, faceless drawings and Turkish as the language. The statutes invoke “French secular values.”.
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Relate The Figaro that the prefect of the Ardèche has ordered the immediate closure of a premises in the centre of Annonay that was operating as an illegal Islamic school. From the outside, the space looked like a disused jewellery shop but to The premises housed an unauthorised after-school club for girls aged between 5 and 11.. The activities included Qur'anic teaching, prayers and handicrafts with Islamic iconography. According to Le Figaro, The inspectors observed drawings of mosques, crescent moons and faceless human figures., a common practice in religious fundamentalist environments.
The newspaper also notes that Turkish was the language regularly used by the volunteers who ran the centre., some of whom did not speak French. This reinforces the idea of a culturally and religiously closed space, removed from the secular educational framework.
Warnings of indoctrination of very young girls
The authorities' intervention took place after several warnings of possible radical religious indoctrination practices and preliminary intelligence work by state services. In light of these indications, A surprise inspection was carried out. of the Cellule de Lutte contre l'Islamisme et le Repli Communautaire (CLIR), the French administration structure responsible for detecting, coordinating and acting against clandestine Islamist activities and dynamics of community withdrawal, especially when they affect minors and develop outside any institutional control.
The centre was managed by the association “Harmonie et Fraternité”, founded in 2016, with no website, no known public activity and even unknown to the city's mayor. Its statutes state that its objective is «To organise, promote and develop education, activities, culture, leisure and sports in accordance with the behavioural values of secular French society. »secular“. Despite formally presenting itself as a ”youth and popular education movement", The entity did not have any authorisation for the collective reception of minors., had not declared the activity, did not keep registration or attendance records, and could not provide any qualifications or certification for the responsible personnel.
Sources cited by the newspaper indicate that the authorities in Annonay had long been monitoring the local Turkish community, including a mosque linked to the radical Islamic confederation Milli Görüş. The warnings, reports and intelligence work on this environment They led the state services to pay attention to parallel associative activities., like this after-school centre where Turkish parents would take their daughters when they left school.
The legal façades for radical religious activities in France
A recent case in Hauts-de-Seine illustrates this camouflage pattern. In May 2025, the prefecture ordered the closure of a language learning centre that presented itself as a foreign language academy, mainly Arabic. State services concluded that the centre was in fact operating as a Qur'anic school disguised as a language institute. During the inspection, officers found materials and evidence pointing to a rigorist religious orientation.
The School for Women and Girls of Poble-sec
In France, these closures are part of an active policy of controlling educational and community centres operating outside the legal framework. In Catalonia, by contrast, the debate takes a different form and the authorities have so far chosen not to intervene in these kinds of initiatives. Several religious education initiatives aimed at women and girls operate in broad daylight, as in the case of the school for women and girls in the Poble-sec neighbourhood of Barcelona. In France, reports on the Muslim Brotherhood have prompted the State and the prefectures to act, but at the municipal level the response remains uneven, constrained by municipal complicity with Islam.
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