Another woman, Widad, pointed to the organisational strength of the Brotherhood as a reason to support its campaign.

BBC: Regional rise of the Muslim Brotherhood

Widad, a 25-year-old secretary of Algerian origin, notes that when she was a schoolchild in Les Yvelines, in the Paris suburbs, four-fifths of her class were North African and only a handful went on to study for the baccalaureate, the school-leaving certificate that is the essential passport to a university or a reasonable job.

ECONOMIST: France's Muslims