Another mosque in France has been shut down, this one in a bleak north Paris suburb that usually makes headlines for criminal gangs and drug trafficking.

The Attaqwa mosque, surrounded by council housing and warehouses in a grim section of Aulnay-sous-Bois, was closed by authorities this week for allegedly propagating radical Islamist ideology and inciting terrorism. Videos posted on social media also showed an imam at the mosque exhorting Muslims to strike their small children if they don’t pray.

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The mosque’s closure is the latest salvo in the French state’s decade-long campaign against extremist imams whose inflamed sermons are promoting jihad and glorifying martyrdom on French soil. The crackdown began following the wave of terrorist attacks that struck France throughout 2015. In November that year, 130 people were slaughtered in Paris, most of them gunned down while attending a rock concert at the Bataclan theatre.

The government immediately shut down three mosques, including two in Paris, as well as four clandestine prayer rooms in Nice. Surveillance of mosques and Muslim associations was also intensified, and deportation orders let to the expulsion about 200 radicalised Muslims including 40 foreign imams.

‘We cannot lose this war because it’s fundamentally a war of civilisation,’ declared then French prime minister Manuel Valls. ‘It’s our society and our civilisation that we are defending.’

The war turned out to be a long and frustrating battle for the French state. Five years later, another wave of Islamist attacks shocked the nation. In October 2020, a radicalised Muslim decapitated French high school teacher Samuel Paty in broad daylight. A mosque in the Paris suburb of Pantin was accused of playing an instrumental role in Paty’s murder by sharing a video on social media that incited hatred towards him. The mosque subsequently expressed regret over the video and condemned........

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