Frérismus: Europas unerkannter Islamismus

Tarnung statt Terror: Während Europa schläft, bauen Islamisten an einer Gesellschaft nach Scharia-Recht – nicht mit Gewalt, sondern durch die schleichende Unterwanderung von Eliten, Universitäten und Institutionen. Die französische Anthropologin Florence Bergeaud-Blackler beschreibt diese Ideologie, die sie „Frérismus“ nennt – und sprach ausführlich mit „Libratus“ über ihre Methoden und ihre Gefährlichkeit.

Stefan Beig | Gesellschaft | 20. Juni 2025

https://libratus.online/de/frerismus-europas-unerkannter-islamismus

Traduction anglaise :

Map of the spread of Islam in Europe: white countries have less than 1% Muslims, dark green 95% and more. © CommonsWikimedia.

Frérism: Europe's unrecognized Islamism

Camouflage instead of terror: while Europe sleeps, Islamists are building a society based on Sharia law - not by force, but by the creeping infiltration of elites, universities and institutions. French anthropologist Florence Bergeaud-Blackler describes this ideology, which she calls "Frérism" - and spoke at length with "Libratus" about its methods and the dangers it poses.

Stefan Beig| Company| June 20, 2025

The state is allowed to do what no individual is allowed to do: enforce the law - by force if necessary. Anyone who persecutes, expropriates or imprisons others simply because they do not conform to their own ideas is a criminal. Only the state may act in such cases - provided it is a constitutional state with a legitimate monopoly on the use of force that respects and protects the fundamental rights of its citizens. Injustice is then clearly defined by law and enforceable before independent courts.

Enemies of the rule of law

However, the modern constitutional state had and still has opponents: a wide variety of ideologues who reject this existing order and see it at best as a transition to a "true" or "just" society. Lenin, Trotsky and fascist theorists were sometimes surprisingly open about their totalitarian goals - their methods ranged from infiltration and terror to coups.

Today, these revolutionary ideologies are no longer effective - but unnoticed by the public, a new one has emerged in the West. This is the central thesis of the new book by French anthropologist Florence Bergeaud-Blackler. She has also given it a name: "Frérism" - derived from its originators, the Muslim Brotherhood. (The term is difficult to translate into German.) The work has now been published in the INÂRAH Monographs series under the title "Kalifat nach Plan. Frérism and its Networks in Europe" for the first time in German.

Florence Bergeaud-Blackler. @ CommonsWikimedia.

The book is sensational because it not only traces the emergence of this movement, but also precisely analyzes the characteristics of its way of thinking and acting. Bergeaud-Blackler, a researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), describes frérism as a "transnational movement that has spread from the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies to countries where Muslims are not in the majority, and which cannot be reduced per se to the 'Brotherhood' of the Muslim Brotherhood."

Roots with Hassan al-Banna

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Cairo in 1928 by the elementary school teacher Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949). They are the first and still the largest Islamist movement, whose best-known national arm is Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The aim was to re-establish Islam as the state and social order through family, society and politics.

The central building blocks of Frérism are already contained in al-Banna's writings, such as the glorification of the early political period of Islam: "The principles of the Koran have eradicated and buried the superstitious idolatry prevalent on the Arabian Peninsula and in Persia," writes al-Banna in "Between Yesterday and Today". "They banished deceitful Judaism and confined it to a small province, putting an end to its religious and political authority. They fought against Christianity, so that its influence on the Asian and African continents declined sharply, was confined to Europe and remained under the protection of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople. The Islamic state thus became the center of spiritual and political supremacy on the two largest continents."

Caliphate - this time in the West

The goal of an Islamic system of rule, a caliphate, also drives Frérism. However, this only developed decades later - not in Egypt, but among Muslim Brothers who had migrated to Western countries and were unable to return.

Frérism is a "synthesis of renewal movements" that, according to Bergeaud-Blackler, emerged in "countries without a Muslim tradition in Europe, the USA and Australasia". In the 1960s and 1970s, Muslim Brothers met other Islamists at European and American universities: "On the campuses of European and American universities, the Arab Muslim Brothers and their cousins from the internationalist Khilafat movement began an intensive discussion about the means that should be mobilized to fulfil the caliphal mission."

Da'wa instead of jihad

For the first time, Islam was to be consciously anchored outside the Islamic cultural sphere. In the USA, Muslim Brothers and supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami founded organizations such as the Muslim Student Association (MSA). For decades, they have been practicing Da'wa - a form of missionary work that explicitly pursues political goals: the preparation of the caliphate.

As Ahmed Shama, MSA chairman, explained at the University of California in 2006: "The only justification - the really only justification - that Muslims have to live in this country is da'wa. I'll say it again. [...] and if we don't do something to invite people to Islam, Muslims and non-Muslims, then we fail to understand what the Islamic movement is ... The ultimate goal of everything I've talked about is the establishment, the restoration of an Islamic form of government."

World view with a political mission

Frérism offers Muslims "an image and a view (vision) of the world and its history, a world view (an idea of the world), as formulated by the German sociologist Max Weber", explains Florence Bergeaud-Blackler. "With the Muslim Brotherhood, the vision projects the glorious past of Medina into the future not in its archaic form, but in a form that is still in the making."

Verse 55 of the Sura of Light from the Koran is central to this: "Allah has promised those of you who believe and do righteous deeds that He will certainly appoint them as governors (successors) on earth, just as He appointed those who were before them as governors..." Bergeaud-Blackler comments on this: God will give to those of today as He gave to those of old - but not the same as He gave to those of old. The verse is interpreted dynamically.

Conquest through missionary work

The most influential theorist of Frérism, Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926-2022), has described how the Da'wa should work in concrete terms. In 1995, he stated: "The conquest through Da'wa is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not by the sword, but by the Da'wa, that is, the invitation, the conversion."

Through his media appearances on the TV channel Al Jazeera, al-Qaradawi became a notorious "cybermufti".

According to the anthropologist, Frérism is a "system of action that is inextricably linked to a world view, a collective identity and a plan". If one of these elements is missing, the movement loses its character:

"If the world view is missing, the movement loses its characteristics of universality, totality and dominance. It becomes a simple pietistic movement ... . If the collective identity is missing, the movement loses its cohesion, its inner solidarity and its ability to adapt. It becomes a simple Islamist party ... . If the plan is missing, the vision gains the upper hand, the movement races towards its end, then violent fanaticism like that of Daesh (IS) or Al-Qaeda emerges."

In short: "It is a political-social-religious movement."

Clear project for the West

"The Muslim Brotherhood is present on all continents, but frérism - its ideological framework - develops almost unhindered in societies where Muslims are in the minority," emphasizes Florence Bergeaud-Blackler in an interview with Libratus. "Frérism as an ideology was 'conceived' in the West, where the Brotherhood had the intellectual freedom to develop it - but its ambition is global. Frérism aims to restructure culture, law and economics in order to make societies 'Sharia-compatible' - with the aim of later being able to enforce Sharia (Islamic law) more easily."

There were protests in the UK when a Sharia-compliant law was to be introduced in 2014. © CommonsWikimedia.

This project is not compatible with the fundamental rights and values of Western democracies. Nevertheless, the actors have largely been left to their own devices: "Western societies are partly to blame because they have remained blind and deaf to the Brotherhood's project - a project that is in fact very clearly articulated," says Bergeaud-Blackler. "You only have to read what they themselves write to understand what they want and how they want to achieve it. That's exactly what I did for my book."

Soviet-style infiltration

The systematic infiltration of the state by Frérism can certainly be compared to the Soviet-style subversion strategy: "There are parallels between the methods of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West and the Soviet subversion strategy as described by Yuri Bezmenov," explains the anthropologist. "This is based on four phases: Demoralization, destabilization, crisis and normalization. I wrote about this in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes'."

Trotskyism, with its technique of entrism, may also have served as a model: "This strategy consists of infiltrating a larger party or organization in order to spread one's own ideas, recruit activists and, ideally, influence their political orientation."

Unlike Salafism

Frérism differs clearly from strictly conservative branches of Islam such as Salafism - above all through its long-term plan: "Frérism is a system of action that aims to align all elements of Islam with the realization of the prophecy of the caliphate. Salafism, on the other hand, is orthopractical: it aims to persuade Muslims to strictly adhere to Sharia law. It has no strategic plan in the same sense as Frérism, which, in contrast, can temporarily suspend certain religious commandments if this serves an overriding strategic goal."

Alliance with the left

According to Bergeaud-Blackler, the fact that frérism also cooperates with left-wing and radical left-wing forces in Europe - Islamists run on the lists of left-wing parties, for example - is logical to a certain extent: "The left and Islamism are internationalist in their basic orientation and appear anti-capitalist on the surface."

Without the support of left-wing circles, the Brotherhood would never have become so influential "given its relatively small numbers". Another reason: "The left no longer has a credible revolutionary project and now sees the Islamist as the last real revolutionary. The revolutionary Islamist has become a fantasy figure of the left. He doesn't exist - but the left doesn't want to give up its dream."

No criticism of Islamism?

Since the publication of her book in 2023, Bergeaud-Blackler has been living under police protection - as the only female researcher in France. "I have to say that I have received no support from my employer, the CNRS - on the contrary. They even tried to initiate dismissal proceedings against me. These proceedings seem to have been dropped in the meantime."

The attitude of many universities is telling: "The Muslim Brotherhood always establishes itself in societies through the universities first. It is a movement of the elites, unlike Salafism, which recruits mainly among low-income sections of the population. It is therefore not surprising that 40 years of Brotherhood influence at universities has led to any critical discussion of Islamism in Europe being pushed out of the universities."

One focus of this influence is so-called Islamophobia research: "'Islamophobia' is the new name for the blasphemy ban."

Islamization of science

At European universities, the research field "Islam in Europe" has effectively been replaced: "It focuses almost exclusively on supposed 'Islamophobic' discrimination. The only research project on Islam in Europe currently funded with ten million euros is 'The European Qur'an' - a project that is more apologetic than critical."

This atmosphere has consequences: "The accompanying censorship leads to self-censorship - no one dares to speak openly anymore."

EU funds for Islamists

Some Islamist projects - such as those promoting the headscarf - have even been supported with EU funds. Bergeaud-Blackler comments: "The European Union is a transnational area, both economically and culturally: it promotes free trade and free cultural exchange. Hundreds of projects that meet these criteria receive funding. The EU does not check who it funds; it works on the principle that any organization that is not explicitly banned is eligible for funding."

Sharia-compatible society

Another core project of Frérism is the "Islamization of knowledge": "It describes the attempt to subject all organizations and areas of science to Islamic principles."

This can already be seen in practice: "For example, Muslims are not allowed to work in bars, working in companies with 'illicit' profits is prohibited or men are given preference over mothers of young children when it comes to job allocation."

Take Malaysia, for example: entire departments there are under Sharia supervision. One consequence in Europe: "The sociology of Islam is left exclusively to Muslims - on the grounds that they 'understand Islam from the inside'. This suppresses critical and non-confessional perspectives."

The goal behind this is clear: "The Islamization of knowledge is intended to make society Sharia-compatible - and thus ultimately prepare for the introduction of Sharia."

What helps against frérism

Bergeaud-Blackler emphasizes that there are certainly ways to counter frérism: "A central component of Islamic-ruled societies is the gender-specific division of space and work. This must be counteracted - for example by banning the veil for minors. It is important to debunk the idea that the Brotherhood version of Islam is the 'authentic' Islam - or that Islam is the only holy religion. To do this, ex-Muslims must be made visible and protected. And one must never succumb to the criminalization of blasphemy or the moral blackmail of 'Islamophobia'. If these steps are taken, the advance of Brotherhood ideology will already be slowed down considerably."

France reacts

Bergeaud-Blackler's book goes into detail about the actions, methods and structures of frérism - and has had political consequences: "My book had the merit of initiating the public debate in France. On this basis, President Emmanuel Macron requested an information report in spring 2024."

This report was initially classified as confidential for security reasons. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau planned to publish it in the fall of 2024 - after revision, it finally appeared a few weeks ago in abridged form under the title "Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islamism in France".

"There is no doubt that elements of my book were incorporated into this report," says Bergeaud-Blackler. "But it was also inspired by other works, particularly by Lorenzo Vidino and Bernard Rougier."♦

Read more:

Kalifat nach Plan: Frérismus und seine Netzwerke in Europa, by Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, with a foreword by Gilles Kepel.

The report "Frères musulmans et islamisme politique en France" published by the French Ministry of the Interior (on May 2, 2025)