France’s New National Council of Imams Faces Criticism from Muslim Leaders

"How come a National Council of Imams is being imposed from above? The imams are adults and vaccinated, and are capable of organizing themselves," he reacted on Thursday on France info. On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron received the leaders of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) who, at his request, presented the main lines of a national council of imams responsible for labeling imams in France.

For the rector, it will be very difficult on the ground to label the imams. "Imams are not halal products that need to be labeled," he added, calling on the CFCM to limit itself "to the temporary administrative management of cults." "As for the Ministry of Cults, it must be reserved for religious people. It is not normal that a National Council of Imams is proposed in the absence of imams," denounces Mr. Oubrou. We must start from the base.

According to him, we must initiate a representativeness according to their hierarchy, their typology, and accompany this representativeness of the imams as an independent Council of the CFCM because it is the religious who must empower other religious people. "It is not up to laypeople or federation presidents to appoint the imams. It makes no sense," he hammered.

In the eyes of the official, a charter of republican principles is useless "since the values of the Republic apply to all faiths without distinction, to all citizens. "We don’t need to affirm what is obvious," he got angry, before stressing that the problem of radicalization "is not in the language, or in the fact of being a foreigner, it is in the doctrinal corpus on which we will train the imams".