French Interior Minister Manuel Valls (L) and Jean-Paul Bonnetain, newly-appointed Marseille Government Prefect in charge of security. – Reuters

STRASBOURG: France will expel anyone who threatens security at home or abroad in the name of Islam or does not respect the country's secular traditions, Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Thursday.

France will be “intransigent... and I will not hesitate to expel those who claim to follow Islam and represent a serious threat to public order and as foreigners in our country do not respect our laws and values,” he said at a ceremony to inaugurate a grand mosque in the eastern city of Strasbourg.

“The preachers of hatred, those espousing obscurantism and fundamentalists ... do not have a place in France,” he said.

“Racism, fundamentalism is not part of Islam.”

"Those who are on our soil to defy our laws and want to attack the foundations of our society cannot remain here," he said.

The mosque, which can hold 1,500 worshippers, is the biggest in France, which with four million Muslims has the largest Islamic population in western Europe.

Opinion

Editorial

Punishing evaders
02 May, 2024

Punishing evaders

THE FBR’s decision to block mobile phone connections of more than half a million individuals who did not file...
Engaging Riyadh
Updated 02 May, 2024

Engaging Riyadh

It must be stressed that to pull in maximum foreign investment, a climate of domestic political stability is crucial.
Freedom to question
02 May, 2024

Freedom to question

WITH frequently suspended freedoms, increasing violence and few to speak out for the oppressed, it is unlikely that...
Wheat protests
Updated 01 May, 2024

Wheat protests

The government should withdraw from the wheat trade gradually, replacing the existing market support mechanism with an effective new one over the next several years.
Polio drive
01 May, 2024

Polio drive

THE year’s fourth polio drive has kicked off across Pakistan, with the aim to immunise more than 24m children ...
Workers’ struggle
Updated 01 May, 2024

Workers’ struggle

Yet the struggle to secure a living wage — and decent working conditions — for the toiling masses must continue.