Montpellier Mosque Struggles with Ramadan Crowds, Considers Expansion

"There are teams of volunteers who prepare the meals, others who provide security and others who lay the carpets. [...] We sometimes have up to 3,000 worshippers during the great Friday prayer and between 1,500 and 2,000 the rest of the week," Lhoussine Tahri, president of the association that owns the place of worship, told Midi Libre. "The current building is located in a dead end, next to the Tam depot, the building apprenticeship center and the De Vinci vocational high school. The continuous influx of worshippers regularly poses problems of traffic and parking," he added.

Faced with this ever-increasing influx, the association that owns the large mosque is considering the possibility of building a new place of worship. "A place of worship and cultural center. We envision a mosque with commercial spaces that we could rent and thus have financing solutions." However, this new solution is difficult to implement due to the legislative framework.

To recall, Montpellier had thwarted the project of purchase by Morocco of the large Averroès mosque. "My position is clear: it is not up to a foreign state to take control of places of worship. [...] How would a foreign state come to replace the people of Montpellier. In the spirit of the 1905 law, it is up to the faithful to take charge of their management," declared Mayor Michaël Delafosse.