French President Emmanuel Macron is seen at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Photo: Reuters/Martial Trezzini

France’s recent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood marks a long-overdue defense of Western liberalism. A leaked intelligence report exposing the Brotherhood’s covert penetration of French institutions reflects a serious governmental shift — one that rightly sees this Islamist movement not as a misunderstood religious organization, but as a subversive ideological force bent on eroding secular democratic norms from within.

For nations like the United States and Israel, this is a welcome change. Yet France’s simultaneous drift toward antagonizing Israel exposes a deep contradiction in its foreign policy — one that threatens both the coherence of Western alliances and the broader struggle against political Islamism.

The French report highlights how the Brotherhood operates through “entryism” — embedding within institutions like schools, local governments, and NGOs — to reshape society along Islamist lines. This is not religious practice; it is political infiltration, designed to weaken the secular state and replace it with one governed by Islamic law. France’s determination to confront this head-on deserves credit. But the fight against Islamism cannot be confined to domestic policy — it must also inform international posture, particularly toward those democracies on the front lines of this ideological conflict.

France’s increasingly hostile stance toward Israel is deeply problematic. Even as Israel defends itself against Hamas — a direct offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood — France has escalated its rhetoric, threatened sanctions, and backed premature recognition of a Palestinian state. This is not principled diplomacy; it is a strategic blunder. It undermines a key democratic ally battling the same forces France claims to resist, and it emboldens the very actors seeking to dismantle the Western order from within and without.

The context matters. In the wake of Hamas’ October 7 atrocities — an unprovoked terrorist onslaught targeting civilians — Israel launched a necessary and lawful campaign to dismantle the group’s military and political infrastructure in Gaza. Yet rather than standing unequivocally with a fellow democracy under siege, French President Emmanuel Macron responded by warning of punitive measures unless Israel altered its military approach. Such moral equivalence dangerously misconstrues the nature of the conflict. Hamas embeds itself in civilian areas precisely to manufacture these dilemmas. To pressure Israel instead of condemning Hamas’ tactics outright is to reward terrorism and punish self-defense.

Moreover, Macron’s push for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, co-sponsored with Saudi Arabia at the UN, sidelines the only sustainable path to peace: direct negotiations. Statehood cannot be imposed through diplomatic fiat. It must be earned through renunciation of violence, institutional reform, and mutual recognition. France’s proposal bypasses all of this, incentivizing Palestinian intransigence while further isolating Israel in multilateral forums.

This imbalance raises a troubling question: why does France, so quick to sound the alarm over Islamist subversion at home, tolerate and even empower radical Islam’s most virulent expressions abroad? If the Muslim Brotherhood poses a threat to the secular French Republic, how can its ideological twin — Hamas — be treated as a legitimate political actor or representative of Palestinian aspirations? The contradiction reveals a failure to apply France’s newfound clarity consistently.

This inconsistency also weakens the broader Western effort to counter political Islamism. Israel is not just another Middle Eastern actor — it is the region’s only liberal democracy, a frontline state confronting threats that extend far beyond its borders. As Brotherhood-inspired movements gain ground across Europe, from radicalized suburbs to university campuses, their international legitimacy is often buoyed by diplomatic gestures like those France now champions. The message is clear: ideological extremism may be denounced domestically, but rewarded diplomatically.

France’s position also threatens to erode its credibility among allies. Israel, already wary of rising antisemitism and radicalization in Europe, sees in these developments not just diplomatic friction, but strategic abandonment. The demonstrations sweeping across French and other European cities in support of Hamas, often laced with virulent anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric, are no accident. They are the domestic fallout of decades of permissive attitudes toward Islamist activism — precisely the kind of threat France now claims to be confronting. A principled stand abroad must match the urgency at home.

To be clear, confronting political Islamism must never come at the expense of individual rights or religious freedom. Discrimination against Muslims is unacceptable. But there is a profound difference between protecting believers and tolerating movements that seek to replace liberal democracy with theocracy. France, through its doctrine of laïcité, upholds one of the clearest boundaries between faith and state. That clarity must extend beyond the domestic sphere if it is to be meaningful.

If France is serious about safeguarding Western values, it must rethink its posture toward Israel. Constructive diplomacy — one that prioritizes the hostages’ release, Israeli security, and a negotiated end to conflict — must replace coercive measures and inflammatory declarations. Hamas, not Israel, is the obstacle to peace. Recognizing this is not only a moral imperative; it is a strategic necessity.

Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx