Green Party to Sue French Ministers Over Strasbourg Mosque Funding Claims

"In agreement with the executive office and Jeanne Barseghian, mayor of Strasbourg, EELV will file a complaint for defamation against Marlène Schiappa and Gérald Darmanin," said Julien Bayou, national secretary of EELV, in a speech at the Federal Council. "We made the decision (last Friday) evening and the complaint will be filed during the course of next week," he specified.

"Gérald Darmanin accused the EELV majority, led by Jeanne Barseghian, of ’financing foreign interference on French soil’. His junior minister, for her part, claimed that ’EELV was colluding with radical Islam’," recalled the national secretary. These accusations follow the adoption of a subsidy for the construction of a mosque. "That ministers, rather than tackling their task, prefer to play ’community managers’ or Macron’s ’gunmen’, is unacceptable!" fumes Julien Bayou.

"The statements made by the ministers of the government constitute serious and unsubstantiated accusations; they cause trouble and division in the population, at a time of crisis that should instead lead the government to encourage solidarity," declared Jeanne Barseghian, the mayor of Strasbourg, to France Bleu Alsace.

On Monday, the city council had voted the "principle of a subsidy" of 2.5 million euros for the construction of the Eyyub Sultan mosque, carried by a Turkish association, the Millî Görüş Islamic Confederation (CIMG). This vote is not to the liking of the Minister of the Interior and his colleague in charge of Citizenship. "We believe that this community (the city of Strasbourg) should not have financed foreign interference on our soil," said Gérald Darmanin. The Greens "are flirting more and more dangerously with the theses of radical Islamism," Marlène Schiappa had declared.