Far-right leader decries "Islamisation of France"

PARIS (Reuters) - A far-right French politician launched his 2007 presidential campaign on Sunday denouncing what he called the Islamisation of the country and declaring Islam incompatible with France's secular values.

Philippe de Villiers, head of the anti-immigrant Movement for France (MPF) party, also charged that Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport was endangered by Islamist radicals who he said had infiltrated the ground staff there.

Villiers has stirred up controversy in recent weeks with increasingly tough statements about Muslims, which critics call racist and officials describe as exaggerated. France's 5 million Muslims make up the largest such minority in Europe.

"I am the only politician who tells the French the truth about the Islamisation of France," he said in a Europe 1 radio interview kicking off his campaign for the election next year.

He plans to publish on Thursday a book entitled "The Mosques of Roissy" detailing his charges about radicals at the airport. His main rival on the far-right, National Front head Jean-Marie Le Pen, has also stepped up his preparations for the 2007 vote.

The daily Le Parisien, in an extensive report on Sunday on Villiers' charges about Islamist radicals at Charles de Gaulle airport, quoted officials saying the problem was minimal and suspicious workers were kept under surveillance.

Aware of the book's imminent publication, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Justice Minister Dominique Perben toured the airport on Thursday and said only 122 of about 83,000 ground staff were being watched.

"There aren't 122, there are hundreds," said Villiers, quoting what he said were top secret police reports he used as the basis for his book and challenging Sarkozy to publish them.

INCOMPATIBLE ISLAM?

According to a survey to be published by Le Parisien on Monday, Villiers trails the veteran far-right leader Le Pen, with 4 percent support against his rival's 14 percent.

Le Pen shocked France in 2002 by knocking Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the running in the first round of the presidential election.

He lost to Jacques Chirac, whose 82 percent total in the runoff included many left-wing votes cast for the incumbent conservative president in protest against the National Front's anti-immigrant policies.

Villiers said Islam was incompatible with the country's democratic system because he said it demanded loyalty to the ummah (world Muslim community) over any individual state, wanted to impose sharia Islamic law and promoted jihad, or holy war.

"I think there are moderate Muslims, they are even the large majority, but I do not believe there is a moderate Islam," he said. "I do not think Islam is compatible with the French republic."

Saying France had to fight what he called its Islamisation, he said Paris should stop all mosque construction, impose a citizen's charter demanding the strict separation of religion and state and freedom to change religions and demand strict respect for the equality of men and women.

It should also ban all Islamist organizations suspected of links to terrorism and expel any persons threatening the security of the French population.

Asked for a pre-publication comment on Villiers' book, French Muslim Council head Dalil Boubakeur told the weekly Le Point: "I don't share his vision of French Islam at all."