Islamisms in Europe II - Islamisms in Europe - Second edition

Presentation

Florence Bergeaud-Blackler holds a doctorate in anthropology (HDR) and is a researcher at the CNRS (GSRL laboratory) and founding President of CERIF. She has thirty years of fieldwork experience in the areas of Islamic normativity, Salafism and Islamist networks in France and across Europe. Her research combines the anthropology of religious norms, the political economy of the halal market and the organisational strategies of Islamism. She is regularly called to testify before parliamentary committees in France and abroad. She was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in 2024.

Selected publications

Le Djihad par le marché (Odile Jacob, 2025); Le Frérisme et ses réseaux. L’enquête (Odile Jacob, 2023); Unmasking The Muslim Brotherhood. Brotherism, Islamophobia and the EU (with T. Virgili), ECR Group, European Parliament, 2025.

Abstract

An anthropological and political analysis of how the economy - and in particular the halal market - has become a strategic terrain for contemporary Islamic fundamentalism. The paper links the political economy of halal to Brotherist organisational strategies, in order to grasp how the market can be instrumentalised as a vehicle for ideological expansion in Europe.

Presentation

Dr Sergio Altuna is a senior researcher at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. A specialist in contemporary Islamist thought, jihadist narratives and violent non-state actors in the Maghreb and the Sahel, he leads the TITAN project devoted to the computational analysis of jihadist propaganda. He has previously worked for NATO, the Japanese Ministry of Defense and the Swiss FDFA, and is an associate analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute.

Abstract

Rather than treating the fragmentation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe as evidence of decline, Sergio Altuna will offer a concise mapping of it, situating actors, networks and affiliated structures in relation to competing transnational centres of gravity (London–Istanbul–Qatar). He will argue that Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in Europe operate according to a logic of simultaneous competition and interdependence, sharing discursive frames and network ties while pursuing distinct forms of legitimacy. This reconfiguration calls for network-based rather than organisation-centred approaches.

Presentation

Ferdinand Haberl is an orientalist and researcher specialising in political Islam, jihadism, security in the MENA region and prevention strategies within the field of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P-CVE). He serves as Deputy Director of the Documentation Centre for Political Islam in Vienna, where he is responsible for the centre’s scientific direction and oversees the implementation of various research projects. In addition, he is an ERCOR researcher within the European Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN), contributing to evidence-based policymaking at the European level. His academic work includes a range of publications on jihadist military strategies and security-related issues, including monographs and edited volumes with international academic publishers. As Co-Lead of the panel "Local Dimensions, Polarisation and Resilience" within the EU Knowledge Hub, he contributes to advancing evidence-based approaches to addressing societal polarisation and extremism across Europe. He holds a PhD in Oriental Studies from the University of Vienna, an LL.M. in Law from the University of Edinburgh, and Master’s degrees in Islamic Studies as well as Security Studies.

Selected publications

Religiously Motivated Political Extremism in Europe (Brill, edited volume, forthcoming 2026); Revisiting the Grayzone (Springer, forthcoming 2026); Jihadi Intelligence and Counterintelligence (Springer, 2023); The Muslim Community in Austria and the Rule of Law (KIRAS/FFG, 2022, co-authored); The Retreating into the Desert (Logos, 2019).

Abstract

The Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most influential transnational movements within political Islam. In Europe, its significance lies less in open confrontation than in its ability to operate through legalist structures, civil society organisations and educational initiatives. Drawing on the Austrian Documentation Centre on Political Islam (DPI), Ferdinand Haberl will show how the production of scientific knowledge, public communication and the translation of findings for educators, the media and decision-makers constitute a genuine democratic counter-strategy against legalist Islamist movements - whose effectiveness often depends on ambiguity and low visibility.

Presentation

Alexander Weissenburger is head of research and senior researcher at the Austrian Fund for the Documentation of religiously Motivated political Extremism (Dokumentationsstelle). He is a member of the EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalization, worked as a researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and as a lecturer at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on the Huthi movement in Yemen and Salafi missionary activities in Europe.

Abstract

This paper examines IMAN, a Salafi missionary organisation primarily active in the DACH region. The organisation is dedicated to the Islamisation of European societies and active both on- and offline. Despite its Salafi persuasion, it shares core narratives of the milieu of the European Muslim Brotherhood and also appears to have personal links into circles of the Brotherhood. The paper argues that especially in a European context, practical considerations and shared goals help to bridge cleavages between different strands of Islamism. Despite their different historical trajectories and ideological as well as strategic differences, Islamist actors such as Salafis or the Muslim Brotherhood can unite behind the shared vision of an Islamised society and work towards that goal in a joint manner.

Presentation

Pierre Vermeren is professor of contemporary history at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. A graduate of the ENS Fontenay-Saint-Cloud and agrégé in history, he is one of France’s leading specialists on the Maghreb and Arab-Berber societies. He heads the CIAMO master’s programme (International Cooperation in Africa and the Middle East) and co-edits the "Bibliothèque des pays d’Islam" series at Publications de la Sorbonne. He chairs the Société française d’histoire d’outre-mer.

Selected publications

Déni français (Albin Michel, 2019); Le Choc des décolonisations (Odile Jacob, 2015, repr. 2023); La Formation des élites au Maroc et en Tunisie (La Découverte, 2002); Histoire du Maroc depuis l’indépendance (La Découverte, 2002, repr. 2016).

Abstract

The school of the Republic is, for the Muslim Brotherhood, an institution that jeopardises their worldview and their conception of religion. The attempts to scuttle, neutralise or paralyse it are many and reach parents, pupils, teachers, the administration, school outings, canteens, dress codes and the mixing of the sexes. Behind set-piece talk of the pursuit of science or of "Islamic schools of excellence" lies, at ground level, a crucial battle waged against the secular State.

Presentation

Fabrice Balanche is a senior lecturer (HDR) in geography at Université Lyon 2 and a specialist in the political geography of the Middle East, particularly Syria and Lebanon. He was a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (2015–2017) and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford (2017–2018). His book <i>Les leçons de la crise syrienne</i> was awarded the 2024 Prix du livre de géopolitique.

Selected publications

Les leçons de la crise syrienne, preface by Gilles Kepel (Odile Jacob, 2024); Sectarianism in Syria’s Civil War (Washington Institute, 2018); Atlas du Proche-Orient arabe (PUPS / RFI, 2012).

Abstract

At university as elsewhere, the Islamists’ aim is to entrench separatism. Infiltration takes various forms, through the association "Les Étudiants Musulmans de France" and left-wing trade unions, and finds militant allies within the academic milieu. The incident of April 2025, when Fabrice Balanche’s lecture hall was invaded by an Islamo-leftist commando, will illustrate the most common pattern of entryism: the one that exploits the grip of the far left over the humanities, social and political sciences.

Presentation

Lorenzo Vidino is director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. A lawyer by training and holding a PhD in international relations (Fletcher School, Tufts), he is one of the world’s foremost experts on Islamism in Europe and North America. He has held positions at the Belfer Center at Harvard, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the RAND Corporation and the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich. He has testified before the US Congress and several European parliaments.

Abstract

In recent months, the US authorities have taken various measures against the Muslim Brotherhood. While the Trump administration designated four branches of the group, Texas and Florida designated the organisation as a whole, along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are well documented. The presentation will examine the political context and legal implications of these measures and assess their potential consequences for the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.

Presentation

Sir John Jenkins is a former British diplomat. Over a 35-year career, he served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Burma, consul general in Jerusalem, British special representative to the National Transitional Council and then ambassador to Libya during the 2011 revolution. He headed the Middle East and North Africa Department at the Foreign Office and was the principal author of the British government’s review of the Muslim Brotherhood (2014). He is currently a senior fellow at Policy Exchange.

Abstract

In March 2026, the British government published a "non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hatred". Sir John Jenkins will retrace its genealogy - from the 1997 Runnymede report and the controversies surrounding the work of the APPG in 2018, through to the confidential consultations conducted under the Labour government of 2024. He will analyse its political underpinnings and the modalities of its implementation, and discuss its foreseeable effects on social cohesion, freedom of expression and the future of liberal democracy in the United Kingdom - with lessons for the whole of Europe.

Presentation

Tommaso Virgili is a legal scholar specialising in comparative law in Islamic countries. He is a senior policy advisor at the AJC Transatlantic Institute, a visiting researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and a research associate at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. His research focuses on the networks of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, legalist Islamism in Italy and the EU, freedom of conscience in Muslim-majority countries and the interactions between integration policies and religious fundamentalism. He is an expert for CERIF.

Selected publications

Unmasking The Muslim Brotherhood (with F. Bergeaud-Blackler), European Parliament, 2025; Islam, Constitutional Law and Human Rights (Routledge, 2022); Network of Networks: the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe (with P. Stott), European Parliament, 2021.

Abstract

The paper examines the penetration of the Muslim Brotherhood and its ideology - "Brotherism" - within the European Union, and the way in which affiliated organisations exploit funding and institutional access to advance their agenda. Following the model of al-Mawdudi and Yusuf al-Qaradawi, these networks have managed to embed their vocabulary in public debate - first and foremost the rhetoric of "Islamophobia" - in order to align themselves with European political and associative actors. The paper concludes by underlining the urgent need for reforms to protect Europe’s secular, liberal and democratic values.

Presentation

Gustav Gustenau, Brigadier General (ret.), Mag., has served as Secretary General of the European Institute for Counter Terrorism and Conflict Prevention (EICTP) in Vienna since 2019. His research has focused on strategic foresight analysis, risk assessment and security development across various fields of security policy. He worked for the Austrian Ministry of Defence between 2000 and 2021, notably as a liaison officer at the National Security Office. He also held a position as a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research at the National Defence Academy, focusing in particular on the Former Yugoslavia between 1989 and 1997. Between 1997 and 2001 he served as Director of the Institute for International Peace Support at the National Defence Academy in Vienna. Gustenau studied modern history, political science and philosophy at the University of Vienna.

Abstract

How should we assess the threat the Muslim Brotherhood poses in Europe? Drawing on the tools of strategic analysis, Gustav Gustenau will argue that the movement should no longer be seen as a fragmented patchwork, but understood as a coherent strategic actor pursuing long-term goals. Its approach is hybrid and adaptive: it aims at the gradual transformation of societies and generates a risk that goes well beyond security alone, reaching state institutions and social cohesion. Gustenau will show that the Brotherhood adjusts its courses of action to each national context, depending on the opportunities and constraints of the moment. His conclusion: only by grasping this overall strategic logic can democracies build effective, anticipatory counter-strategies that tackle the root causes rather than merely the symptoms.

Presentation

Ruud Koopmans is research director at the WZB in Berlin and professor of sociology and migration research at Humboldt University of Berlin. One of the most-cited European sociologists in the field of immigration and integration studies, he has served on the advisory board of the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and sits on the board of DeZIM (the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research).

Selected publications

Das verfallene Haus des Islam (C.H. Beck, 2020); Die Asyl-Lotterie (C.H. Beck, 2023); Contested Citizenship (University of Minnesota Press, 2005).

Abstract

This paper presents a synthesis of the research and data available on support for fundamentalist Islamic attitudes and ideologies among the general Muslim public in several European countries, compared, where possible, with those in countries of origin. It provides an empirical indication of the scale of grassroots support enjoyed by Islamist organisations in Europe - and of the extent to which Islamist actors, in Europe and in the Muslim world, continue to shape the attitudes of Muslims in the European diaspora.