A corruption scandal rocks the European Parliament.
Qatargate: The result of 20 years of interference, ideological and financial complacency.
On December 9, 2022, during the World Cup in Qatar, a corruption scandal rocks the European Parliament: Qatargate. The former Vice President, Eva Kaili, a Greek socialist MP, is imprisoned after Belgian police found bags filled with cash at her Brussels home, money she allegedly received in exchange for defending Qatar’s interests. Just a month earlier, she had declared within the European Parliament that "Qatar is a leader in labor rights," despite the countless controversies surrounding the treatment of workers on the World Cup stadium construction sites. This alleged corruption scandal, which quickly became known by the evocative name "Qatargate," shocked the European continent.
Yet, twenty-two years before its revelation, in the fall of 2000, Qatar hosted a summit in Doha with all Muslim states, during which, under the aegis of ISESCO — the Islamic world's equivalent of UNESCO — a protocol was adopted that explicitly envisioned the substitution of (rigorist) Islam for our civilization in the West.
In other words: the creation of societies governed by Sharia law in Europe. The entire action plan was laid out: fostering Islamic cultural and educational communities, funding mosques, and, crucially, identifying sympathizers in Western countries.
Everything was planned. But the West saw nothing. Or rather, a part of its leadership, either compromised by financial interests (on the right) or by the ideology of so-called "right to difference" (on the left), or both, pretended not to know. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood managed to advance their rigorist agenda in the West. It’s time to react. But that first requires being aware of this collective adversity that is directed at us, both French and Europeans.
Qatargate, aren’t you being a bit extreme ?
On the contrary: the suffix “-gate” is added in English to describe a scandal within a scandal—illegal actions, lies, or scandals, whether real or alleged. Even more so when they are covered up by a government authority, especially when there are political or financial affairs involved. My book will show you that this is exactly what we are dealing with.
The 'Strategy for Islamic Cultural Action Outside the Islamic World,' the document you refer to as the 'Doha Protocol,' is easily accessible, but isn’t it considered scandalous?
The document itself isn’t a scandal; it’s a protocol signed by over 50 Muslim countries that clearly agree on a strategy for Islamic action in the West.
The real question is why this document is completely ignored by policymakers and the media, who should be using it to better understand and decode the rise of Islamism in France and Europe.
After studying Arabic and general linguistics at the University of Amsterdam, Patricia Chagnon moved to Khartoum, Sudan, to study and work. There, she witnessed the proclamation of Islamic law and the first public corporal punishments ordered by Islamic courts, ranging from floggings to amputations, and even hangings. She was arrested on the campus of Omdurman University, and a few months later, heard the cries of her seven-year-old neighbor as she underwent genital mutilation.
Following these experiences, Patricia Chagnon pursued her career as an interpreter far from the Arab world, in Asia, where she observed the rise of rigorist Islam in Indonesia, and later in Australia, where in 2018, the largest mosque in the Southern Hemisphere was built in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney. Upon her return to France in 1999, she worked in tourism and heritage restoration, earning the Tourism Medal for her contributions to revitalizing her region. Patricia Chagnon became a keen and seasoned observer of the rise of rigorist Islam in France and Europe. Since the start of her political involvement in 2013, she has denounced subsidies given to Islamist organizations in the Hauts-de-France region. In 2014, she was elected municipal councilor in Abbeville and community councilor for the Baie de Somme Agglomeration Community, and in 2016, regional councilor for Hauts-de-France.
In 2019, after the publication of the book Qatar Papers by Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, which revealed significant Qatari funding for the Averroès High School in Lille—a Muslim high school under contract with the French state—Patricia Chagnon questioned the Hauts-de-France Regional Council. That same year, she succeeded in having the authorization for burkini use at the family pool of the Aquaclub de Belle Dune, in Quend, Hauts-de-France, revoked. In 2019, Chagnon also supported residents of Abbeville in canceling the project to build a rigorist mosque in a residential neighborhood of the city. In 2023, the construction permit, granted by a communist official, was annulled by the administrative court of Amiens. The Court of Appeal of Douai took up the case in September 2023.
Now a Member of the European Parliament, she stands out as one of the few voices explaining why the alleged corruption scandal involving Qatar in the Parliament, quickly dubbed "Qatargate," which implicated high-level officials and decision-makers within the European Union, was no surprise, due to the close ties between certain European ruling circles and Qatari authorities, linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.