Marion Lalisse — EU’s combating anti-Muslim hatred coordinator keeps us in the dark

Last May, the European Commission's former second-in-command, Margaritis Schinas, hosted a conference against racism and antisemitism. Its star speaker was Israel's minister of foreign affairs, Israel Katz. Katz has courted a slew of controversy over the years. 

He declared UN secretary-general António Guterres persona non grata and rejected an official visit by Josep Borrell when the latter was EU foreign affairs chief. More recently, as  Israel’s defence minister, Katz called for the "total devastation" of Palestinians.

The event in May was intended to highlight a worrying trend of anti-semitism throughout Europe, but it also put into sharp relief how criticism of Israeli military operations are often assumed to be racially-motivated.

An audience member was reportedly escorted out of the event by security for posing questions on Israeli war crimes, at a time when the EU itself refused to reconsider its association agreement with Israel despite the human rights abuses.

But it also demonstrates how hate against Islam has taken a back seat in Europe amid token efforts to curtail what the Fundamental Rights Agency says is mounting racial discrimination against people of Muslim faith.

"Women, men, and children are victims of harassment and violence based on their religion, skin colour or ethnic background," said the Vienna-based agency in a report last year.

Young Muslims are also more likely to leave school early, hampering their employment opportunities later in life.

Almost one-in-two Muslims experienced discrimination, said the European Commission last November, noting that just six percent of all incidents are reported.

Chief among those in Brussels fighting racial discrimination is Marion Lalisse, appointed by the European Commission in 2023 as coordinator for combating anti-Muslim hatred. She very quickly faced a backlash from far-right circles after posting on social media of herself speaking Arabic ahead of the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. 

"Muslim women and girls can face an extra burden of hatred, especially if they are visibly Muslim"

The French former diplomat, who previously served as the deputy EU ambassador to Yemen, Lalisse has been tasked to raise awareness of anti-Muslim racism.

"A first step is to acknowledge that it exists and that it can be ingrained in our own institutions, our own families, our own daily lives," she said at a United Nations event last October.

"Muslim women and girls can face an extra burden of hatred, especially if they are visibly Muslim," she added.

The lack of a unified definition of anti-Muslim hatred is also said to undermine coordinated efforts at the EU level. It also makes the collection of comparable data on anti-Muslim hate crimes difficult.

Questions sent to Marion Lalisse by EUobserver via the European Commission spokesperson services have since gone unanswered despite repeated attempts. 

And Lalisse, when contacted directly for an interview, said she had to first wait for the commission's spokespeople for permission. "I await their decision. Apologies for that," she said in an email.

Some of those questions sought responses to structural changes needed within the EU institutions to tackle discrimination, the holding of member states accountable for failing to curb Islamophobia and why there is no dedicated action plan to fight anti-Muslim racism.

In public documents, the commission says an EU law from 2008 prohibits public incitement to violence or hatred based on race, colour, ethnicity and religion. It means those who preach hatred or call for violence, based on anti-Muslim prejudice, can be prosecuted by national authorities, it says.

But an event last year co-hosted by the commission on combating anti-muslim hatred had also concluded that civil society, education and media have a key role to play. So it is not immediately clear why responses went unanswered. 

But Lalisse has been quoted in Hyphen, a media platform on Muslim life, as describing her job to help European officials improve their understanding of Islamophobia as “draining”. And  in March, she told Anadolu, a Turkish media outlet, in an email, that anti-Muslim hatred and other forms of racism and discrimination are being normalised. 

“I have been working on making the internet a safer place for Muslims. I have been working with member states and other actors to make sure that the Digital Services Act is implemented in a way that tackles anti-Muslim hatred and intersecting forms of hatred,” she was also quoted as saying in Anadolu.

For its part, the commission has launched talks for a new EU anti-racism strategy for 2026 to 2030. The Brussels-executive is now demanding the wider public to contribute in order to create, what it says, is a society free from racial discrimination. 

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