Frederick Videl, France's higher education minister.

Her priority in the midst of a global pandemic root out Islamist sympathies from French universities with a government probe into academic research.

We have a very strong extreme right, so you cannot play with fire by saying you want to get get rid of Islamism and universities.

It has consequences.

The row of a university research is part of a wider government offensive against Islamist ideology in France.

At its heart, a new law designed to stop the separation of some Muslim communities from mainstream French society.

What we have to attack is Islamist separation, a political religious project which emerges out of riffs with the values of the republic and often leads to a counter society.

But Mr Macron is struggling to bridge rifts even within his own political party, and fear of Islamist extremism is home turf.

To his far right rival, Marine Le Pen, public opinion is telling Macron, you can't look away, so it pretends it talks tough.

But in reality this law is laughable and doesn't in any way protect the French.

The new law, which has already passed the lower house of parliament would put tighter controls on religious funding, education and cultural associations.

There are also tougher penalties for threatening public servants or endangering others by spreading personal information online.

The question of who's tougher on Islamist extremism provoked a tussle on live television last month when Macron's interior minister accused Le Pen of being too soft and advised her to take some vitamins.

You're going further than I am then Le Penn asks him.

Well, yes, the minister says, I'm harder than you, but it's not just those who preach violence who are under the microscope.

Macron is keen to tackle the roots of Islamist extremism in schools, mosques and associations, and that's left some Muslims feeling unfairly targeted.

Annan.

Luckily, school was closed late last year in what the Paris authorities called the fight against separatism.

But the legal grounds for the closure were administrative, with no mention of any Islamist activity.

Annan says her school taught a strictly secular curriculum and is appealing the decision.

We asked the Paris prefecture for comment, but no one was able to respond.

We think it's a discrimination and just because we have a girl who had who were headscarf.

Um, they put us in the case of extremism, so they shut down our school, and that is a problem because they don't attack only the extremist people.

They attack all the Muslim people.

Religious symbols like headscarves are banned in all French state schools, was private and the only secular school in Paris to allow them.

For 15 year old Rouhani, it means she's now back at an Islamic school, despite wanting a secular education.

For us was a school who you can were without Islamic course.

You don't learn Koran, you don't have a religious course, and it's why you choose what I choose to go back to the Islamic school.

Like I said, I didn't feel very good about it.

It was either removed my scarf or go back to my Islamic school.

Mr.

Macron wants to ensure that religious teaching is in line with French national values.

He's demanded more control over the funding and training of France's imams and introduced a charter of Republican values for them to sign.

The head of the Paris mosque was one of the first to sign it.

We need to establish a bond of trust between the Republic and the Muslim community.

I know some people don't like it because we're supposed to be citizens already, but I think this needs to be done and we're the ones who need to make the effort to be considered as citizens.

I don't see this as reductive, more humiliating at all.

Today I'm stating facts.

There's a link between Islam and terrorism.

No one should kill in the name of Islam, and on that there's work to be done.

And how are you going to give unfair?

The Islamist beheading of school teacher Samuel Petty in a suburban street last year turned up the pressure on President Macron.

A recent poll suggested that almost half of French voters think Marine Le Pen would do better on security and that a similar number thinks she is likely to win the presidential race next year, man.

But there are others questioning whether the government is going too far.

When Samuel Patty was beheaded, I was there only a few meters away from the body.

Do we fully realize what happened?

A teacher was beheaded with a knife at five in the afternoon in the middle of the street because he taught a class on freedom of speech.

It's not just another terror attack.

It's a turning point.

I don't think we're going too far.

I think there's a huge fight to be had against terrorism and radical Islamism.

For Marine Le Pen, the challenge is to appear softer, not harder.

More than any other party in France, her house emblem on national is now seen as the main opposition to macron.

Tighter controls on religious organizations have angered conservative Christians as well as Muslims.

Marine Le Pen, often labeled Islamophobic, says she's the ally of the faithful In France.

There is religion, on one hand, an ideology on the other.

The government has made a narrower in thinking that Islamism derives from the Muslim religion and that all religions are guilty in a way, the low wants to restrain Islamism by putting at risk the freedom of religion.

I ask about her policy of banning the Muslim headscarf from French streets.

Would that also apply to the Jewish keeper.

As I have said to, my Jewish compatriots were asking for a sacrifice to renounce the wearing of the kippah in order to be able to ban the headscarf, which I see as part of Islamist combat.

It's still over a year until the next presidential race, but France is preparing for a rematch between Macron and Le Pen.

One poll has put them just four points apart.

The gamble for France's centrist president is whether winning votes on the right will make up for losing them on the left.

The electorate of of Marine Le Pen is extremely mobilised.

They are going to support Marine Le Pen, and so if the electorate of macron without hesitation, the left would abstain, then you can get very, very narrow result.

Yeah, Emmanuel Macron rose to power four years ago, promising to bridge France's political divide.

But the old left and right of politics has enduring power for many voters, and the man who wanted to unite them both may find himself faced with choosing sides.