OWNBe careful, sensitive subject. Ifop returned in a very detailed study, conducted for the journal Screen saverabout its relationship with the Muslim religion. The results of this “inventory of relations with Islam and Muslim Islamism in France” confirm the results of the previous wave. This community lives out its beliefs with increasing intensity, especially among the younger generation. The latter would especially place Islam above the laws of the Republic and above science, should a conflict arise between the two.
The absence of official statistics on the socio-demographic composition of Muslims in France meant that Ifop took a very large sample (14,244 people aged 15 and over), before interviewing a sub-sample of 1,005 people, including foreign nationals and respondents with limited command of French. The aim is to avoid the echo chamber effect, where respondents who declare themselves to be believers formulate responses that logically are believers.
Compared with the entire population of France, between 1985 and 2025, the number of respondents who declared themselves Muslim increased sevenfold. However, the figure is still low, rising from 1% to 7%. There is no substitute for major religions in this program, Islam is still a minority in our country. At the same time, the proportion of respondents who said they were Catholic fell from 83% to 43%, while respondents with “no religion” increased from 13% to 37%.
This slow and uneventful dechristianization contrasts with the strengthening position within the Muslim community. In the survey, 44% of respondents thought that “respect for Islamic rules” was more important “than respect for French law”, and this proportion increased to 57% among the 15-24 age group. Less than one in six Muslims (15%) surveyed in France believe that “Sharia law should be fully implemented in whatever country we live in”.
And once again, 15-24 year olds are more radical than average. 21% think so. One in five. And in this age group, approached by imams online, 8 in 10 (81%) believe that “religion is right when it comes to opposing science on the question of the creation of the world”. 65% of Muslims hold this opinion, compared to an average of 19% of Muslims who adhere to other religions.
Wearing the veil is decreasing among those in their fifties
Wearing the veil clearly illustrates the generational disconnect within the Muslim community. This figure decreased sharply between 2003 and 2025 among the population aged fifty years (from 35 to 16%), but at the same time increased among the population aged under 25 years, from 16 to 45%. The same applies to attendance at religious services. Muslims in their fifties are starting to leave mosques (31% of visitors in 1989, 21% in 2025) while the number of visitors aged under 25 has increased rapidly in the same period, from 7 to 40%.
Certain comparisons over time are eloquent. 38% of French Muslims agree in whole or in part with the Islamist position. The number was only half that amount in 1998, namely 19%, emphasized Ifop. Symmetrically, the number of Muslims who want Islam to be modernized has fallen from 48% in 1998 to 21% currently. If there was a conflict between the Civil Code and Sharia law regarding “important subjects in your family such as ritual slaughter, marriage or inheritance”, the agency asked, 49% of Muslims would choose to respect French law, compared with 62% in 1995. 46% of Muslim men consumed alcohol in 1989. Today that figure is just 26%.
Currently, 33% of Muslims living in France, French or foreign (and 42% of young people), sympathize with one of the Islamic movements. Among the same population, 3% sympathize with its bloody version, jihadism. 3% of 7% Muslims. An optimist would say that this figure represents only 0.21% of the French population.
The pessimistic group would see a support base and possible recruitment of more than 142,000 people. This radicalized minority, or at least tending to support radicalization, generates open and massive rejection among a large third of Muslims. 37% position themselves as far away from the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadism as possible, on a scale of 1 to 10 proposed by Ifop.
23% support the Muslim Brotherhood
The Brotherhood (of which Hamas is an emanation) retains 23% of sympathizers among believers in France. Wahhabism, an ideology whose impact even Saudi Arabia is trying to limit in public life, aroused sympathy in 8% and only 18% were outright hostile. There are many people who are misinformed and doubtful. This study is consistent with observations of painful integration failures. Muslims whose fathers were born in France were more likely to be sympathizers of Islam in at least some of the programs than those whose fathers were born in the Maghreb (51% versus 32%). French people by birth are twice as likely to adhere to the Muslim Brotherhood as French people by birth (35% versus 18%).
What factors protect against radicalism? Ifop tries to understand this. As a woman, of course not. Slightly more men than men expressed sympathy for at least one Islamic movement (34% versus 32%). Age plays a role. Teenagers aged 50 years are more likely to feel close to the Muslim Brotherhood (16% versus 32%) than teenagers aged 15-24 years.
Very interesting detail, having a Middle Eastern born father melts sympathy towards the Brotherhood! The number of respondents who experienced this was 14%, compared with 34% among Muslims whose fathers were born in France. Those who saw the Muslim Brotherhood in action in Egypt or Türkiye clearly did not have only good things to say about it to their children.
Diplomas and social success are partly immunizing. 22% of managers and upper middle class professions agree in whole or in part with Islamist positions, compared with 42% of workers. And once again, the category of respondents who have the worst inclination towards Islamist groups are respondents whose fathers were born in the Middle East, at 32%, compared to 51% of respondents whose fathers were born in France.
The typical profile of a Muslim who is resistant to Islamist discourse is a qualified executive at the peak of life, whose father was born in the Maghreb or Middle East. And the opposite is a young girl, working, born in France to Muslim parents who were already living in France, or converted. The Republican integration machine is not broken. It works in reverse.
The weight of the group?
The Ifop survey, stratified by place of residence, highlights cohort impacts that need to be explored in more detail. Muslims who report living in “remote towns” are not as radical as those who live in big cities or suburbs. Regarding the latter, there is little difference between central cities, working class suburbs and rich suburbs.
To find
Kangaroo today
Answer
In both types of suburbs, for example, we find the same number of sympathizers for at least one Islamic movement (35%). The proportion is 33% in city centers, while in remote cities it falls to 19%. But be careful before concluding that living apart encourages religious moderation. The proportion of respondents who agreed with “all or part of the Islamic position” was the same in the Paris region and in rural communities…
Ifop learn for review Screen Saver conducted by telephone from 8 August to 2 September 2025 with a sample of 1,005 people of the Islamic faith, taken from a nationally representative sample of 14,244 people aged 15 years and over who live in mainland France.
