French Threat to Militant Muslims After Council Vote
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
PARIS, April 15 France's interior minister threatened today to expel any Muslim religious leader considered extremist after a fundamentalist Muslim organization unexpectedly won a large number of seats in an election for the country's first national council of Muslims.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the law-and-order minister who pressed hard for the creation of the council, told Europe 1 radio that he would make sure that the organization would not be used to spread views that run counter to French values, particularly the promotion of Islamic law.
"It is precisely because we recognize the right of Islam to sit at the table of the republic that we will not accept any deviation," Mr. Sarkozy said. "Any prayer leader whose views run contrary to the values of the republic will be expelled."
At another point he said, "Islamic law will not apply anywhere because it is not the law of the French republic."
Representatives of nearly 1000 mosques and prayer centers went to the polls on April 6 and last Sunday to elect representatives to a council that will represent the country's five million Muslims before the French state. The goal, Mr. Sarkozy said repeatedly, is to create an "official Islam for France" that will take france's second-largest religion out of the "cellars and garages," make it more transparent and show that most Muslims are "moderate," mainstream, law-abiding citizens.
The group that made a surprisingly strong showing in the election is the Union of Islamic Organizations in France. It preaches a strict conservative interpretation of Islam, derives much of its support from the poor suburbs of Paris and other major cities and is said to derive its inspiration from the banned fundamentalist Islamic Brotherhood originating in Egypt.
In the two rounds of elections it won 14 of 41 seats on the governing administrative council.
The organization has come under fire by those who claim it has close links with the Muslim Brotherhood, which calls for Islamic rule via Islamic law, personal purification and political action, and should not be officially recognized by a secular country like France.
"This is a hidden movement, skilled in double talk, that plays on the social frustrations of many young people," Addzidine Houssain, president of an Islamic group from the Paris suburb of Seine-St.-Denis, was quoted as saying in today's editions of the newspaper Le Parisien. He added, "The wolves have entered the manger."
Mr. Houssain personally criticized Mr. Sarkozy, saying that his acceptance of the group has "created an Islam that has no connection with the Islam of France."
The so-called moderate Islamic organization, represented by the Algerian-backed Paris Mosque and supported by Mr. Sarkozy, was expected to dominate the elections but received only six seats on the council. A third group that is less fundamentalist than the Union of Islamic Organizations in France and close to the government of Morocco won 16 seats, more than expected.
Despite its weak showing, the rector of the Paris Mosque, Dalil Boubaker, will automatically become the head of the council under a compromise hammered out by the three main Muslim groups under pressure from Mr. Sarkozy, long before the elections.
"There is neither victor nor vanquished," said Khalil Merroun, rector of the mosque of Evry, who derives his support from the group allied to Morocco. "This is victory for Muslims."
Unlike Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism, Islam has no hierarchical structure in France, and the council will give it a forum by which it can directly communicate requests and grievances to the government. The other mainstream religions have long had similar councils.
But Paris's Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, expressed concern Sunday night on radio and television that the council could nurture radicalism. And he complained that the French government was making Islam a "state religion" because of the intrusion of the government in the organization of the council.
Mr. Sarkozy said in an interview with Le Parisien today that such concerns were exaggerated, calling the council "the best way to fight the Islam of cellars and garages." He added that he was not worried about the support for the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, saying, "I have nothing against them."
In the interview with Europe 1 he said that the council will give the government "more latitude to fight against the few Imams who breach the law in advocating violence or anti-Semitism," adding, "Those Imams will be expelled."
Awwww, that's too bad. |
