France’s intelligence services are warning that “political Islam” is actively infiltrating the country’s universities after an Islamo-Leftist coalition captured three out of eight seats of the board of directors in the National Center for University and School Services (CNOUS) elections. CNOUS, a state institution, oversees campus housing, cafeterias, and student life centers at colleges and universities throughout France. It also manages assistance programs to help students cover the cost of housing and tuition while attending college.
The goal of the Muslim Students of France and the Muslim Brotherhood is to make secularism difficult to defend by portraying this secularism as Islamophobic.
In a historic first, Muslim Students of France (EMF)—described by a May 2025 French parliamentary report as “the student branch of the Muslim Brotherhood”—won a director’s seat on CNOUS in the April 2026 elections with the support of the far-left student activists.
CNOUS’s website reported that the alliance of the EMF with the Student Union Federation (FSE), which describes itself as “militant” and “against capitalism and imperialism,” and the Student Union, an anti-far-right organization, secured 32.1 percent of the total vote.
An Islamist voice with outsized influence on the student union of French universities will likely escalate demands for Muslim prayer spaces, halal food in university canteens, segregated accommodation for female students, scholarships for Muslim students, and censorship of critical scholarship on Islam in university departments of religion and theology.
France’s Largest Conservative Student Union Hits Back
“Islamism is taking root in the CNOUS thanks to an opportunistic alliance with two far-left organizations,” the Inter-University Union (UNI), France’s largest union of conservative students, warned following the triumph of the Islamo-leftist axis.
📣 Depuis des dizaines d’années, l’UNI alerte sur le danger des EMF (étudiants musulmans de France), association proche des Frères musulmans qui professe un islam radical et communautaire.
— UNI (@droiteuniv) April 17, 2026
Aujourd’hui, ils parviennent à accéder aux plus hautes instances de la vie étudiante et… pic.twitter.com/o9NfOyUNZ9
“For decades, UNI has been warning about the danger of the EMF, an association close to the Muslim Brotherhood that promotes a radical and communitarian Islam,” the organization posted on X. “Today, they are managing to access the highest levels of student life and spreading their deadly ideology within universities.”
“The goal of the Muslim Students of France and the Muslim Brotherhood is to make secularism difficult to defend by portraying this secularism as Islamophobic,” Baptiste Gilli, UNI’s national delegate, told French television. “Once they have elected officials, they can advance their ideological agenda and put in place things that are inconsistent with the values of the Republic.”
Top Expert on Brotherhood Explains Threat of Student Election
“The infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood on campuses is longstanding; it is now becoming institutionalized,” Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, president of the European Centre for Research and Information on Brotherism, noted. “EMF has entered CNOUS through an Islamo-leftist alliance.”
Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) asked Bergeaud-Blackler, author of The Muslim Brotherhood and Its Networks: The Investigation, whether it was alarmist to claim that Islamists were infiltrating CNOUS when only one Muslim candidate had secured a seat. “It is not ‘one candidate.’ The Islamist-Leftist obtained 32.1 percent of the vote and three seats out of eight on the CNOUS governing board, which is the national body overseeing student life for the entire French higher-education system,” the anthropologist replied. “That is the second-largest share of the vote.”
Bergeaud-Blackler explained that the Islamist group’s entry through an electoral alliance “is precisely how Brotherhood-linked organisations have historically gained institutional footholds in Europe by mounting joint tickets with secular leftist partners.” This also enabled it to sanitize its reputation and gain institutional legitimacy that its own colors wouldn’t have secured.
“Second, the significance is not numerical but institutional,” she emphasized. “A seat on the CNOUS board is not symbolic! It opens access to decisions on halal menus, prayer-room requests, religious accommodations, and the allocation of public funds for student life, as the CNOUS and its affiliate network manage roughly €16 million annually for student life. This is an automatic invitation to ministerial consultations on higher-education policy.”
The eminent expert on the Brotherhood pointed out that the April 2026 election is the first time the Muslim Students of France has crossed from regional and local representation to national institutional governance. “What is new is the entry of an organisation identified by French intelligence as a Brotherhood satellite into the highest student body of the Republic,” she warned.
Intelligence Services Warn of Islamist Infiltration of Universities
Meanwhile, a week after the CNOUS elections, L’Express, a leading French weekly, reported that France’s intelligence services were sounding the alarm over the penetration of “political Islam” targeting French universities on two levels: research and student life.
“Young researchers who do not subscribe to postcolonial orthodoxy face increasing difficulties in conducting research on Islam in France,” the leaked document revealed. It raised as a twin concern the emergence of candidates close to the Muslim Brotherhood during the recent student elections in several universities. It also noted that Islamist candidates had listed halal menus in canteens and prayer rooms in universities in their election manifestos.
Several academics have identified the alliance of Islamism and Leftism as a key factor in the move by Islamists and Leftists to subvert, destabilize, and gain control of French universities.
On its website, the Student Union Federation, an election partner of the Muslim Students of France, openly declares that it opposes the existing “bourgeois” university system, which serves “imperialist and capitalist interests” and maintains “the exploitation of the working class.” The federation notes that “since its foundation, the university has produced and disseminated knowledge, specifically serving the dominant classes.”
The French parliamentary report specifically noted the infiltration of universities by the Islamo-leftist alliance, citing a March 2025 invitation by a member of parliament from the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) to the Muslim Students of France.
The report also linked the EMF with the Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe (CCIE), a reconstituted version of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), which was dissolved for radical Islamism by French Minister for Justice, Gérald Darmanin, who denounced its “unacceptable proximity to Islamists.”
In May 2025, Géraldine Woessner, chief editor of Le Point, warned that French universities have been the scene of ideological infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood for the last 20 years. “The far left is creating a breeding ground for political Islam at the university,” remarked Fabrice Balanche, a professor in Political Geography at Lyon 2 University, who was attacked by a student mob for his position on Middle East issues.
