PARIS, April 24, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A far-right French politician launched his 2007 presidential campaign on Sunday, April 23, denouncing what he called the "Islamization" of the country and declaring Islam incompatible with France's secular values.

"I am the only politician who tells the French the truth about the Islamization of France," Philippe de Villiers, head of the anti-immigrant Movement for France (MPF) party, said in a Europe 1 radio interview, kicking off his campaign for the election next year, Reuters reported.

On measures France should take to fight what he called its Islamization, Villiers 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, he added.

He further charged that Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport was endangered by Islamist radicals who he said had infiltrated the ground staff there, releasing on Thursday, April 27, a book entitled "The Mosques of Roissy" detailing his charges.

Villiers has stirred up controversy in recent weeks with increasingly tough statements about Muslims, which critics call racist and officials describe as exaggerated.

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.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Justice Minister Dominique Perben toured the airport on Thursday, April 20, and said only 122 of about 83,000 ground staff were being watched.

Villiers also said Islam was incompatible with the country's democratic system because he said it demanded loyalty to the ummah (Muslim nation) over any individual state, wanted to impose Shari`ah 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."

French orientalist Bruno Etienne has maintained that Islam does not pose a threat to secularism and French Muslims are taking initiatives in coping with the country's secular laws.

Esther Benbassa, a French expert at minorities' affairs, has called for "reshaping" secularism in France to protect the rights of minorities, saying that the western European country has been suffering from an "identity crisis" for decades.

The number of Muslims in France exceeds six millions, representing 10% of the population and possessing 1.8 million votes.

They come from 53 countries. Algerians represent a great majority of French Muslims.

French intellectuals have said Muslim organizations in France have made great strides and acted "more positively" to counter racist campaigns, which made some of them to change their names and hide their roots to spare themselves discrimination and police hunt.

Vincent Geisser, for instance, said that French Muslims have proved that they are an integral part of France, citing the "sense of national unity" French Muslims displayed in helping release two French hostages kidnapped in Iraq.

Other experts praised the swift action of French Muslim leaders to calm down thousands of angry youths of immigrant origin, who took to the streets last year to protest marginalization, discrimination and heavy-handed treatment of police.