BEIRUT: Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun warned Tuesday that extremist Islamists would take over power in Syria if the regime of President Bashar Assad was brought down by the ongoing popular uprising.

He said although Syria is ruled by one party, religious plurality is tolerated in the Muslim country unlike Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

“Who will replace Bashar Assad if he falls? He will be replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood. You have a weak idea about the Muslim Brotherhood who insist on not abandoning the niqab in France. French authorities urge [Muslim women] to abandon the Niqab and fine them. But in the Levant, [French authorities] finance them,” Aoun told a delegation of French journalists and intellectuals who visited him at his residence in Rabieh, north of Beirut.

“Therefore, an extremist Muslim system will rise, replacing the plural system which is preparing to develop. We cannot today change a plural system in exchange for an extremist system that respects only one political ideology,” Aoun said.

The French government has banned the niqab – the Islamic full-face veils.

Aoun has supported Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai who has warned that the collapse of the Assad regime would lead to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and threaten the presence of Christians there.

Referring to last week’s sectarian clashes in Cairo between the Egyptian military and Christian Copts which left 26 Copts dead, Aoun said: “What happened in Egypt gives us a clear picture of what will happen. Do they want to turn Arab countries into unstable countries so that they can benefit and exploit the resources that exist there? Do they want to partition the region into small countries ruled by sects? I don’t think that this project will pass.”

Although the popular uprising in Syria, which began in mid-March, has persisted unabated, posing the gravest challenge to Assad’s 11-year rule, Aoun said: “The situation in Syria is improving. The Levant will witness civilization and progress.”

Aoun, who belongs to the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance which is backed by Syria, defended what he called “religious plurality” in Damascus despite the many political constraints imposed by the ruling Baath Party.

“But the Syrian system is less strict than the Saudi system or the other systems in the Gulf at the religious level,” he said.

“It is true that there are political constraints [in Syria], but the economic system has begun to open up, becoming liberal. What remains is for the regime to begin political reforms and eliminate taboos,” said Aoun.