“Le terme d’islamophobie remplit plusieurs fonctions : nier pour mieux la légitimer la réalité d’une offensive intégriste en Europe, attaquer la laïcité en l’assimilant à un nouveau fondamentalisme.”
I think that Google Translate is probably correct here on “en l’assimilant”,⁰ but it could also be “to attack laïcité by assimilating it into a new fundamentalism”: I suppose the argument is then that one has radically altered laïcité into some neutered form that cannot recognise any problem with Islam.
⁰ assimiler means both “liken” and “assimilate” according to my memory and Wiktionary
"The term Islamophobia fulfills several functions: to deny, in order to better legitimize the reality of a fundamentalist offensive in Europe, to attack secularism by likening it to a new fundamentalism."
Also, not that it should matter, the site is/was part of Perlentaucher.de, a well-known and not at all right-wing etc. culture magazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlentaucher