Auch Unveils New Mosque: 600-Capacity Worship Center Rises from Ashes of 2015 Fire

After three years of work, the new mosque in Auch has emerged from the ground. Built on the same site as the old one, but on a larger area (565 m²), it has a capacity of 600 people. The men’s prayer hall and a mezzanine are located on the ground floor and first floor respectively.

Inside the building, three classrooms for Arabic language and Quran courses, a meeting room, an office for the imam and a place of worship have been erected. The mosque is equipped with a beautiful carpet manufactured and installed by the company MSD Décoration, the leading supplier of carpets/rugs for mosques in France.

"This year, there is no collective breaking of the fast. And I fear that for Eid, it will remain complicated. No collective prayers of course. But this accentuates the importance of the moment of spirituality that we are about to live in our families. This makes us aware of the difficult times we are going through. We remain a little worried for isolated people," said Mohamed Benjeddour, head of the Muslim Worship Association of Gers, to la Dépêche du Midi.

According to him, this will be "a really atypical Ramadan" due to the containment measures imposed by the French authorities to curb the rapid spread of covid-19. Among them, the closure of all mosques throughout the national territory until the end of the confinement.