Dispute erupts in France over plan to use public funds to build Strasbourg mosque
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A row erupted in France over plans to build a mosque in Strasbourg, with the interior ministry accusing municipal authorities on Wednesday of using public money to finance “foreign interference” on the soil French.
While President Emmanuel Macron wants to suppress Islamic extremism, which he accuses of a series of deadly terrorist attacks in France since 2015, the planned mosque in the city in eastern France has found itself in the line of sight of the government because it is supported by a Turkish leader. muslim group.
On Monday, Strasbourg municipal officials, led by a green mayor, approved a grant of 2.5 million euros (nearly $ 3 million) to the Islamic Confederation Milli Gorus (CMIG), a pan-European movement for the diaspora Turkish.
But the CMIG is one of the three Muslim confederations in France that refused to sign a new anti-extremism charter defended by Macron.
Macron wants groups to pledge in writing to renounce “political Islam” and abide by French law, as he seeks to combat radical Islam he sees as a threat to the country’s secular system .
>> French government unveils new law against Islamist extremism >>
The government also drafted legislation that would require Muslim groups to report significant foreign funding and give the state increased powers to silence speech deemed to propagate hatred or violence.
“We believe that this association is no longer able to figure among the representatives of Islam in France”, declared the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin about the Milli Gorus group on BFM television.
“We believe that this municipal authority should not finance foreign interference on our soil,” he added.
Macron warned of Turkish interference in next year’s French presidential elections, in an interview that aired Tuesday.
Relations between France and Turkey have been shaken by the conflicts over Libya, Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, and Turkish accusations of Islamophobia in France.
Darmanin said he asked the top regional government official to file a complaint with the administrative court to stop the grant.
The mayor of Strasbourg, Jeanne Barseghian, said that the mosque project had been under construction since 2017, before her election, and that the funds were conditioned on the presentation by Milli Gorus of a solid financing plan and “a reaffirmation of the values of the Republic”.
A CMIG official, Eyup Sahin, told AFP that his association refused to sign the charter because it had not been allowed to participate fully in its development.
“It was done by two or three people,” Sahin said. “If we sign a charter, it will be a charter that we all have worked on together.”
Darmanin is expected to meet again in the coming days with the president of the French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM), a group of Muslim organizations, to try to find an agreement.
(AFP)