Former French Minister Calls for ’Republican Islam’ in France

"We must promote this republican Islam," he said in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien, in which he was questioned about the compatibility of political Islam with the Republic. "Ghaleb Bencheikh rightly said that we must free Muslims from a literalist interpretation of the sacred texts. Through the Fondation de l’islam de France, which he chairs, there is educational work to show the interpretation that can be given to certain sermons, and especially the one that must not be given," continued the former minister.

Regarding the draft law against separatism, he recalled having "proposed to create a faculty of Muslim theology in Strasbourg, which would give the State a right of oversight over the training of top-level imams." The problem today, "is that the Muslim Brotherhood train most of the imams, in Château-Chinon and Saint-Denis in particular," Mr. Chevènement stressed.

For the former minister, the success of this reform will depend on a good understanding of secularism, "including by those who lead us." "We make secularism a kind of cold administrative code or even worse the synonym of atheism," he lamented. "Secularism separates the religious space and the republican space," he affirmed.