In a letter dated June 18, 2025, addressed to the Supreme Leader of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the acting General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Salah Abdel Haq, announced the Brotherhood’s “full support” for the Iranian regime and proposed a joint strategy to “gather forces” and “unify the efforts” of Islamist movements.
While expressing satisfaction over the “defeat” inflicted on Israel on October 7, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood considers the Israeli attack on Iran as “A new phase in the aggression against Palestine.”
Calling for an end to divisions between Sunnis and Shiites in the name of the necessary “unity of the Islamic ummah” in the face of the “common enemy” that is the “Zionist entity,” the Brotherhood’s Guide proposes to his Iranian counterpart a “comprehensive strategic vision” aimed at rallying the will of the “living and active forces” of the “Islamic Ummah,” by “unifying their efforts” to confront the “fire of occupation and its supporters [which] makes no distinction between our origins or our schools of thought” and seeks to “expand the aggression to the entire resistance environment, whether it be a central state like the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the Islamic movement [i.e., Hamas], at the heart of which lies the Muslim Brotherhood.”
For the past 30 years, through my articles, books, and lectures, I have continuously tried to raise awareness and sound the alarm about the dangers posed by the Muslim Brotherhood Association to our societies—dangers that are even greater for Arab and Muslim societies, which this violent and reactionary entity has helped destroy or plunge into chaos (Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Libya, etc.).
Commissioned by the Élysée Palace during a special Defense Council held in January 2024, a report on the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy of infiltration (entryism) in France was prepared by the Ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs. Under the supervision of diplomat Pascal Gouyette and Prefect François Courtade, a group of senior civil servants—tasked in April 2024—visited four European countries and ten French departments, interviewed over 200 individuals (including intelligence officers, religious leaders, researchers, elected officials, and diplomats), and submitted a report to the authorities in July 2024.According to the Ministry of the Interior, the report “highlights a serious threat, characterized by a double discourse combining insularity, concealment, and apparent respect for the rules, with the aim of replacing national unity with new forms of allegiance that break away from the republican tradition.”Ten months later, the government—at President Macron’s request to formulate “proposals commensurate with the seriousness of the findings”—decided to publish a “redacted version” of the report (to protect sources, as is standard when declassifying documents from “Secret Défense” status).The report was described as “damning” by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau.
Excerpts:
This is the story of a man who joined jihad at the age of 21, fought the “Great Western Satan” for two decades, seized power by force, and was “elected” president of the republic—not through the ballot box but through Bay’a, the oath of allegiance sworn by his followers. And now, here he is, received with honors at the Élysée and presented as a “moderate” who has renounced jihadist violence and is supposedly leading a democratic transition! All while his followers continue to massacre minorities in his country.
The new master of Damascus, Ahmed al-Charaa, alias Abu Mohammad al-Joulani, welcomed with honors at the Élysée Palace! On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Nazi surrender, Emmanuel Macron chooses to make Paris the first Western capital to embrace the former jihadist leader who seized power by force, following the flight of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
In an effort to appear “moderate,” the new Raïs abandons his war name (Abu Mohammad al-Joulani), removes his jihadist turban to don military fatigues—long enough to pose as the military leader of the “liberation” (Tahrir)—before trimming his beard in Muslim Brotherhood style and appearing in a suit and tie once he is inaugurated as “President of the Syrian Arab Republic.” His investiture came not through ballots, but through Bay’a—the oath of allegiance—given by the various armed factions that took part in the anti-Assad uprising, during a “Victory Congress” held in Damascus on January 29, 2025.
By receiving this controversial figure—while the jihadist militias of the organization that brought him to power (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) continue to commit abuses against Alawite, Kurdish, and Druze minorities—the Élysée is choosing to lend credibility to the fiction that after two decades of jihadist activism (in Zarqawi’s network, the Islamic State in Iraq, and al-Qaeda), al-Joulani has, in just six months of rule, transformed into a “moderate” politician, committed to democracy, pluralism, and… inclusion!
Laurent Fabius must be turning in his hospice bed—he who, as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2012, famously said that “Jabhat al-Nusra” (al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, founded and led by Syria’s current president) was “doing a good job”…
Who really is Ahmed al-Charaa, aka Abu Mohammad al-Joulani? Has he truly renounced jihadism? Will his presidency be the start of a pluralistic regime? Or is it merely the prelude to a new form of despotism, replacing Baathist authoritarianism with radical Islamism?
A seven-part portrait of a true chameleon, who has spent the past two decades constantly shifting both appearance and ideological allegiance…
Of course, the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers are essential conditions for judicial impartiality. The verdict delivered by the Paris correctional court against Marine Le Pen, in the case of the Front National’s (now Rassemblement National) European parliamentary assistants, stems from this necessary—and sometimes perplexing—independence of judges. The surprise and embarrassment that the verdict has cast on the political class… even at the highest levels of government, are a testament to this.
Geopolitician and essayist Frédéric Encel analyzes the repercussions of the new shockwave shaking the Middle East after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the rise to power of an Islamist coalition led by Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, a former figure of ISIS and al-Qaeda.
The revolution is underway in Damascus. Once again, in the Arab world, history takes a dramatic turn, and the Syrian people hold their breath. Bashar al-Assad has fled the country, and Islamists have seized power. What lies ahead? The battalions led by Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, a former jihadist of ISIS and then al-Qaeda – whom he allegedly parted ways with in 2016 – thank Allah from the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, a radiant symbol of Sunni Islam. These images will go down in history, though no one knows how it will unfold.
Chloé Morin, a political scientist and essayist, served as the director of the Opinion Observatory at the Jean Jaurès Foundation (2017-2020) and was an advisor to two left-wing Prime Ministers, Jean-Marc Ayrault and Manuel Valls (2012-2016). She is the author of several essays, including “The Unmovables of the Republic: You Will Never See Them, but They Govern” (Éditions de l’Aube, 2020), “Populism to the Rescue of Democracy?” (Gallimard, 2021), and “We Get the Politicians We Deserve” (Fayard, 2022). In this interview, she analyzes the consequences of the censure of Michel Barnier’s government.
