A French anti-Islamophobia body has said it will refer historian Richard Haddad to prosecutors after he claimed certain Islamic teachings encourage Muslims to sell drugs to non-believers.
In an interview with French channel CNews, Haddad said: "They're led by imams who teach them hatred and violence ... in some religious training programmes, they tell them that you can sell drugs to non-believers. It's in the texts, it's not a reinterpretation." He added: "Many don't, but unfortunately some teach it to children."
Haddad's remarks have drawn sharp condemnation from Muslim civil society organisations.
The Collective for Countering Islamophobia in Europe (CCIE) - one of France's principal organisations monitoring anti-Muslim discrimination - announced its intention to refer the matter to the public prosecutor.
The CCIE said: "These statements could be deemed to constitute public defamation of a group of people on account of their membership of the Muslim religion, by attributing to some of its members serious and unsubstantiated practices."
The CCIE was established to document and legally challenge Islamophobic acts and speech in France and across Europe. It regularly brings cases before French courts under the country's hate speech legislation, which prohibits public defamation on grounds of religion.
Haddad is a French historian and essayist who has written extensively on Islam and Islamism in France. He is a regular presence on CNews, the country's most-watched news channel and one frequently criticised by French Muslim organisations for platforming voices hostile to Islam. His academic profile lends his remarks a veneer of authority that critics argue makes them more damaging.
Haddad's claim that Islamic texts sanction drug dealing to non-Muslims has no basis in mainstream Islamic jurisprudence and has been widely rejected by Islamic scholars. French drug policy researchers have similarly found no evidence linking drug distribution networks in France to religious instruction. France's drug trade is driven by socioeconomic factors concentrated in deprived urban areas - the same banlieues whose largely Muslim populations are already subject to disproportionate police scrutiny.
The controversy adds to a pattern of high-profile figures making inflammatory remarks about religious minorities on French television. It underscores ongoing tensions around how Islam and Muslims are portrayed in French public discourse, particularly by those with significant platforms and influence in intellectual circles.
Source: TSA Algérie / CCIE