In a Turkish-style restaurant in Strasbourg sits a self-described far-left, anti-racist, feminist politician who wants to be France’s equivalent of New York’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Cem Yoldas is seeking election in March as mayor of Strasbourg, France’s eighth largest city, but his campaign is one of two covered by media as a Trojan horse for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Polls credit the 29-year-old youth educator with about five per cent of voting intentions, far behind heavyweight socialist politician Catherine Trautmann, 74, who leads in the polls ahead of the outgoing Green mayor.
Interest in Strasbourg has been heightened by the fact that its relatively large Turkish community is influenced by Islamist movement Milli Gorus, which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood. A report from the national government this year led to measures to clamp down on alleged French chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood, including the disbanding of endowment funds and a new asset-freeze mechanism.
The unfinished Eyyub Sultan mosque on the outskirts of the city, purportedly the largest in Europe, is supported by the organisation. A secondary school and another mosque are overseen by Ditib, the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, a Turkish state-run umbrella organisation that is also most active in neighbouring Germany.
Yet whether next year’s elections will truly result in an expansion of the Brotherhood’s influence is a hotly contested question as polarisation in France increases.
Eyyub Sultan mosque in the outskirts of Strasbourg has been under construction since 2017 and is
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