French police have launched an investigation into a town hall official in a Paris suburb accused of having links with the Muslim Brotherhood, months after the government announced new measures to fight the organisation.
The official is described by French media as the right-hand man of Mayor Patrick Chaimovitch, of the city of Colombes north-west of Paris, who is affiliated to the left-wing Greens party.
The prosecutor's office, which has its headquarters in nearby Nanterre, launched an investigation over alleged “illegal acquisition of interest and money laundering” after the local prefect Alexandre Brugere filed a report.
Police started by searching the home of the official, Stephane Tchouhan, before seizing documents related to the financing of local grassroots organisations from the town hall.
“We gave them access to the offices, computers, and files,” Mayor Colombes told daily newspaper Le Parisien on Thursday, one day after the event, adding that “the police deployment surprised everyone”.
Mr Tchouhan has denied any links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
“The goal is to humiliate me, and this whole affair is a fabrication,” he said.
“They're portraying me as an Islamist and crucifying me in the public square without any evidence.”
Mr Brugere made his claims after the Lissen Institute, a language school that taught Arabic, French and English, was closed down earlier this year. The closure was linked to a security issue – a fire safety defect.
According to radio Europe 1, that is when officials from the prefecture noticed that the school's director was also the mayor's chief of staff.
Colombes' town hall said the prefect's accusations came after statements made last May “regarding Islamist infiltration” but there was “not the slightest proof” to back the claims.
“Not a single cent was given to the Lissen Institute,” Mr Chaimovitch told Le Parisien.
French prefects are high-ranking civil servants who represent the Interior Ministry in departments across the country.
They have a key role to play in President Emmanuel Macron's new strategy to combat the Muslim Brotherhood's influence on institutions. The officials have been encouraged to report any suspected use of public funds in supporting grassroots initiatives, particularly in youth sports, that may be viewed as affiliated to the organisation.
Arabic language and Quranic schools have also come under scrutiny, with some ordered to close down.
The Muslim Brotherhood was described in a recent report ordered by the Interior Ministry as subverting French values of national cohesion.
Left-wing parties are suspected by the right and far-right of harbouring so called “Islamo-leftist” sympathies. In June, political groups in Parliament, including Mr Macron's centrist group Renaissance, approved a request filed by right-wing politician Laurent Wauquiez to set up a commission of inquiry into alleged links between groups that propagate extremist Islamist ideology and French political parties, in particular leftist opposition party France Unbowed. Mr Wauquiez had called for “demonstrating links between France Unbowed and Islamism and anti-Semitism.”
This charge has been strongly rejected by leftists. On Thursday, Manuel Bombard, the national co-ordinator of France Unbowed, cited a comment from the director of the intelligence division of the Paris police, Hugues Bricq.
Mr Bricq said there were “very little” links between organisation, which traces its roots to an ideological movement originating in Egypt, and the modern far-left. On the contrary, he said, those links were stronger between hard-right "fringe" activists and Islamist extremists because of common anti-Semitic sympathies.
