A right-wing French MEP has blasted the inclusion of an NGO linked to the Muslim Brotherhood at a recent event hosted in the European Parliament, warning that EU officials must stop all financial support for extremist organisations and do more to prevent Islamists from gaining a foothold in EU institutions.
Rassemblement National MEP Catherine Griset wrote an open letter (seen by The European Conservative) to President of the Parliament Roberta Metsola after the Muslim youth group, Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO), evoked controversy when it was featured prominently at an EU youth leadership event last month.
FEMYSO, which specialises in the training and networking of Muslim activists in Europe, has earned a reputation in recent years for its alleged ties to the transnational Muslim Brotherhood organisation, a group synonymous with infiltrating civil society through front groups and political entryism.
The pan-European group is a regular in the European Parliament and has earned the scorn of conservative and nationalist MEPs who accuse it of being an Islamist bridgehead into EU institutions.
MEPs have repeatedly highlighted the fact that FEMYSO has received generous EU Commission funding, and many security experts warn of the youth group’s proximity to the Muslim Brotherhood.
In her letter, Griset describes how the continued funding of FEMYSO contradicts the EU’s supposed commitment to secular values and that the EU is facing the broader issue of entryism by the forces of political Islam. The MEP concludes by asking that representatives of FEMYSO not be invited back to the Parliament again.
FEMYSO was established in 1996 and campaigns on issues such as combating Islamophobia and the far Right and has repeatedly denied any links to the Muslim Brotherhood. The group functions in the hope of creating “active leadership” in the Islamic community in Europe and has played a role in the monitoring of Islamophobic hate crimes in the EU.
In April, the President of FEMYSO, Hande Taner, wrote in a guest op-ed for the EUObserver that her organisation was the subject of an organised smear campaign orchestrated by a Swiss PR firm. FEMYSO made headlines in 2021 over the alleged harassment of their members by young right-wing activists in the European Parliament during an anti-racist seminar.
