Gennevilliers Imam Dismissed Over Controversial Sermon on Women’s Modesty

The Minister of the Interior asked the prefect of Hauts-de-Seine to summon the officials of the Gennevilliers mosque and dismiss Imam Mehdi after a sermon in which the imam made a reminder about the dress of Muslim men and women. The Gennevilliers imam would have accused women of "lacking modesty", particularly "those who share makeup lessons or outfits that highlight the shapes of their body on social networks".

The remarks that the Minister of the Interior considers contrary to the values conveyed in France. "At my request, the Prefect of Hauts-de-Seine summoned the officials of the mosque so that this imam be dismissed," Gérald Darmanin said on Twitter.

His publication provoked many reactions. For many, the imam’s remarks are not sexist since the sermon also focused on men. "The diktat that wants to even impose on imams the content of their sermon, even on a subject as cardinal as modesty, disregarding the sacrosanct principle of secularism, is an unacceptable intellectual colonialism," some have denounced, calling on the Minister of the Interior to be restrained, describing his relentlessness to see the religious leader dismissed as an abject vendetta.