Far-Right French Party Sanctions MP for Attending Mosque Inauguration

For the party of Marine Le Pen, the presence of deputy Joris Hébrard at the inauguration of a mosque cannot go unpunished. The deputy was fined on Friday, a week after the act, with a reprimand. A decision that comes from the executive office of the party which "disapproves of his initiative to inaugurate in the commune of Le Pontet", near Avignon, "a mosque openly linked to Turkish power and influence networks".

The RN MP was "heard" by its members before the decision of the sanction, assures the executive office of the party which recalls its "political line", that of "the uncompromising fight against all forms of communitarianism as well as the rejection of foreign influences, in particular of Erdogan’s Islamist Turkey, on French national soil".

The president of the RN group in the National Assembly, Marine Le Pen, declared on Wednesday, during a press conference, that she "clearly disapproved" of this "personal initiative" of deputy Joris Hébrard of which she "was not at all aware". For the entourage of the latter, his presence at the inauguration of a mosque poses "no ideological problem", assuring that the elected official "knows well" the Turkish community, "very established, very present" locally.

Mayor of Le Pontet until 2022, Joris Hébrard inherited the file of the construction of this mosque, specifies his entourage which points out that "it was the previous UMP mayor who had given the building permit and sold the land" to carry out this mosque. Eric Zemmour’s party, Reconquête, did not fail to react to this news. Its section in Vaucluse issued a press release to demand the exclusion of Joris Hébrard from the RN.