They call it the “bunker”- a few windows, all screened, a flag on the roof. “It looks like a foreign embassy in a hostile country”. In July 2013, following a police check on a veiled woman, 400 residents stormed the building. The siege lasted several hours and required, from the police, 700 stun grenades and tear gas. A helicopter was mobilized.“It looked like a war scene,” a policeman said at the time.The attacks have continued since then. The latest dates back to Saturday 27 March. Eight mortar rounds with fireworks hit the front of the building.
What building? It is the police station of Trappes, a French town of 35,000 inhabitants, at the center of a long investigation by the weekly Valeurs Actuelles.
The “brigades” go around the city. Those so called are the followers of the Islamic fundamentalist movement Tabligh who, all dressed in white, enforce the religious prescriptions on the inhabitants. Sharia law, Islamic law. They intervene against those who drink, against a lightly veiled woman …
Hostility becomes palpable and very visible on certain occasions, such as September 11, 2001, the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center. A policeman recalls this chilling scene: “I was driving a scooter in the city center of Trappes. The residents cheered and shouted for joy ”.
In February the town returned to the limelight for Didier Lemaire, professor of philosophy in a local high school, that of Plaine-de-Neauphle, who after denouncing the city’s Islamization found himself under guard and out of teaching due to threats . On February 5th, in the columns of Le Point, Didier Lemaire expresses in no uncertain terms: “I consider Trappes a decidedly lost city”.
“Behind the great mosque, three young people hurry to hide beers and cigarettes as the faithful pass by,” says Valeurs Actuelles. “Teenagers who have skipped prayers are scolded by a believer about their obligations as ‘good Muslims'”.
“Today Islam is the majority religion, much more than Christianity, which exists thanks to the influx of African and Indian immigrants. The church of Saint-Georges, with its millenary bell tower, can accommodate 500 faithful. The great mosque of Trappes, a few kilometers away, is home to 2,400, five times more ”. Every Friday, over a thousand Muslims go to collective prayer. Many of them wear the rigorist suit. An ostentatious religiosity that emerges in some young people and is shown with pride.
“The Jews who lived here have long since left the city, preferring Maurepas and Élancourt, a few kilometers away. O Israel … “. In the city remains only the son of the former president of the community of Trappes, Philippe Mimouni, and his old mother, in his eighties. “From the time of the fire in the synagogue, the Jews of Trappes understood that there was nothing more to do here”, explains Philippe Mimouni, who is thinking of making alya.
At the Lycée de la Plaine-de-Neauphle, Didier Lemaire no longer teaches philosophy. Accused by Mayor Ali Rabeh of “Islamophobia”, Lemaire is no longer welcome in this city where he taught for twenty years. The rare times recently that he has returned to Trappes, there was a heavy police escort surrounding him….12 policemen.
Welcome to France 2021. It has the makings of a horror movie.