Muslim Leader Hails French Secularism as ’Opportunity’ for Islam in France

"For Muslims in France, secularism is an extraordinary opportunity: they belong to the last religion to have sat at the table of the Republic alongside the other faiths with which they are on an equal footing. In a very short time, we have built a heritage of Islam in France with 2,600 places of worship. This freedom of association and obtaining funding, we have had it thanks to secularism," he said in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien.

In this interview, he spoke out on the draft law against separatism that will be examined this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers. The rector welcomes the desire to normalize the organization of the Muslim faith in France. "But I also have reservations. The necessary transparency concerning foreign financing is already provided for in the Monetary and Financial Code. Why repeat it in a new law?, he wonders. The same goes for the apology for terrorism, there is already a 2017 law. The French legislative system is sufficiently complete."

While admitting that opacity reigns in the financing of places of worship by foreign funds, the official refuses to cast doubt on all foreign financing and calls for a distinction to be made between countries. "The Great Mosque of Paris is financed by Algeria in total transparency, this does not pose a problem for French society. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Gulf countries..., they have no reason to be sources of funding, they have no community here in France," he explains.

What about Islamism in the Hexagon? According to this high-ranking Muslim dignitary, it is up to the mosques to tackle this issue. "The imams must indeed ensure the Friday sermon, but they must also get out of their prayer room to go to the Muslims and non-Muslims in order to explain to them the reality of their religion. They alone can do this theological work, deconstruct the argument built up by the terrorist groups who legitimize their actions by instrumentalizing and perverting the religious corpus. To do this, they need to be trained and have a legal status. We also need to find how to pay them through new sources of funding: the pilgrimage to Mecca, a halal tax...," he comments.