French Muslims Feel Increasingly Marginalized, Religious Leader Warns

In France, Muslims are increasingly isolated and stigmatized. Islamophobic violence is multiplying, to the point of becoming commonplace. Discrimination is observed on a daily basis and even affects schools. Recently, the private high school Al-Kindi had its state subsidies withdrawn. "We are being excluded from society, made outcasts," fumes Kamel Kabtane, who is concerned about the future of Muslims in France.

"Today, we are watched like milk on the fire. I have never known a France so divided, with such great unease," he laments, deploring that in today’s France, "Muslims are seen as terrorists, Salafists, Islamists... I don’t know what other words we can invent." "I’m disgusted. I wonder: what more can I do?" he said in an interview with Mediapart, published on Sunday.

The rector of the Grand Mosque of Lyon and president of the Council of Mosques of the Rhône says he regrets that his voice no longer carries, acknowledging that "things have changed" with the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the murders perpetrated by Mohammed Merah. But these acts do not justify this tendency to "put the Muslim community, as a whole, on the fringes of society," denounces Kamel Kabtane, who condemns a general stigmatization of Muslims in France.

The rector of the Grand Mosque of Lyon also condemns the hateful speeches from the highest French authorities, citing as an example the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, who recently stated that the veil would be "the banner of Islamism," and treated Muslims as "French on paper." Also, the rise of the Rassemblement national (RN) contributes to making the situation of Muslims in France more deleterious, he indicates, urging the French authorities to "trust" the Muslims.