On 13 June, at the European Youth Event 2025, the youth wings of the Identité Libertés and Rassemblement National parties demonstrated against the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO)’s participation in the event outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg. This protest was sponsored and joined by sitting members of the European Parliament, the French far-right MEPs Marion Maréchal (ECR), Marie Dauchy (Patriots) and Pierre-Romain Thionnet (Patriots). The protesters held a banner which read “Stop FEMYSO, pas d’Islamistes au Parlement !”. The day after, during a workshop at the event hosted by FEMYSO, multiple far-right activists attempted to disrupt the session, filmed the participants without their consent and posted the content online. These demonstrations and physical presence of far-right delegates at the FEMYSO session were part of a wider orchestrated and discriminatory campaign of harassment and intimidation, which unfolded throughout the event as visibly Muslim participants were harassed, followed, and cornered in the European Parliament and targeted purely based on appearance, especially visibly Muslim women youth. After similar episodes in 2021 and 2023, this is not the first time that far-right movements attempt to erase Muslim youth’s participation in European civil society events. FEMYSO has called on the European Parliament and elected officials to condemn these incidents and reject the instrumentalisation of Islamophobic narratives.
