France has officially blocked Omar Bin Laden, son of former al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, based on allegations that the 43-year-old had posted items glorifying terrorism. Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced on Tuesday that Omar Bin Laden, who lived in Normandy, had been banned “for any reason whatever.”

Omar Bin Laden has been living in France since 2016 and relocated from the country to another place in 2023. He was banned for two years because of posting a few controversial posts on social media. The French administration mentioned that the ban was linked to a few posts published around his first death anniversary. According to the report, the French state accused him of posting a series of posts that allegedly glorified terrorism. He was suspended for posting material that praised terrorism.

Apparently, Bin Laden is also an artist who sells his living by painting landscape portraits. He had obtained his French residency based on his marriage to UK citizen Zaina Mohamed Al-Sabah, nee Jane Felix-Browne. After he was expelled from France, it was reported that he went back to Qatar, the country where he and his wife previously resided.

Omar Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia; he is the fourth-oldest son of Osama Bin Laden. He went to Afghanistan for part of his youth, where he was trained in jihadist camps, but in 2000, he distanced himself from his father, stating he did not want to be associated with the killings of innocent civilians. Although Omar Bin Laden separated from his father and renounced the violence of his father, he made mixed statements about his father in various interviews over the years.

In his memoir, Omar described growing up under brutal and often squalid conditions as his father evaded international intelligence agencies. Though he rejected Osama Bin Laden’s acts of terrorism, he referred to his father as a “kind” man who adhered to a strict religious and moral code sentiment that has led some to accuse him of being an apologist for his father’s actions.

After his father was killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in 2011, Omar Bin Laden spoke against the way Osama was buried. He claims that the U.S. committed an international law infringement since Osama was buried at sea without proper burial procedures. Osama Bin Laden’s body was taken to a U.S. base in Afghanistan so as to identify it.

Omar Bin Laden supporters have also denounced the French government’s decision. Pascal Martin, a friend who has been helping Omar sell his artwork, said the accusations do not portray the person he knows. “We became friends, and I can tell you that nothing that is being said resembles the Omar I know,” Martin said while defending Omar’s renunciation of radical Islamism.

Banning Omar Bin Laden is the last of a series of authoritative moves by France to further consolidate its position with regard to political Islam and immigration. Retailleau, one of the most reactionarily inclined members of the government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier, has announced his intention to reduce immigration into France and take even harder measures to oppose political Islam. Critics point to the appointment of Retailleau as the symptom of the rise of the reactionary right in French politics.