Strasbourg mosque project creates political storm in France
Eyup Sahin wonders how his plans to build a worship center in the French city of Strasbourg have become such a flashpoint.
In her office a few kilometers away, the city’s mayor, Jeanne Barseghian, recounts how her life has been turned upside down since the local authority accepted a request from Sahin and her Turkish Islamic organization for a grant of 2.5 million euros to build what would be one of the biggest mosques.
The answer, they say, is political – particularly the ongoing campaign between President Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen ahead of next year’s elections. Both are eager to show how tough they are on Islamists, illegal immigrants and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“We were surprised at the intensity of it all,” said the bearded Sahin, as construction of the € 32million complex in a former warehouse district continues with the help of donations from loyal followers. to the organization of the Turkish diaspora Milli Gorus (National Vision). of which he is the regional chief. “This is political persecution. In elections people get used to it, and today we are the target.
The controversy erupted last month after Gerald Darmanin, Macron’s hard-hitting Interior Minister, accused Barseghian – of the opposition party Green Europe Ecology The Greens – to finance a mosque being built by an organization which “supports political Islam”.
In January, Milli Gorus, along with three other groups, refused to sign the “Charter of the principles of French Islam” promoted by the Macron government as part of its fight against extremism and Islamist “separatism”.
The charter affirms the compatibility of Islam with the values of the French Republic, rejecting political Islam, denying the notion of apostasy and defending gender equality. Sahin said Milli Gorus did not sign it just because his representatives had not been consulted and he did not agree with the wording.
Barseghian, attacked by the right as an Islamist sympathizer and by the Armenians for supporting the Turkish project despite her Armenian heritage, said she was “shocked” by Darmanin’s accusation, which sparked threats and hate mail.
“The government clearly wants to criticize and attack the Greens” ahead of the election, she said. “[But] it is a very dangerous game for us to engage in subjects like secularism, republican principles and religion. It divides the country and gives a boost to extremists.
Darmanin then said he ordered a legal challenge to the planned grant, while government spokesman Gabriel Attal went so far as to say that Milli Gorus, whose presence in Western Europe is centered on Germany, did not “no reason to organize activities or to exist in France”. .
Hombeline du Parc, a local politician with Le Pen’s National Rally party, also harshly criticized the mayor and said Milli Gorus, who was founded in 1969, was beholden to Erdogan. “People can practice their religion, we have no problem with that,” she said. “But foreign interference is unacceptable.”
Samim Akgonul, head of the Turkish studies department at the University of Strasbourg, said the issue was a political giveaway for Darmanin as he sought to punish Milli Gorus for refusing to follow the line.
“The French interior minister was looking for revenge, and he found it in Strasbourg on funding for the mosque,” he said. “Technically speaking, the decision [to fund it] was right. Politically speaking, it was a very awkward move.
The mosque project, which would serve some 30,000 people of Turkish origin in Strasbourg, was approved in 2013 and the foundation stone was laid in 2017 in the presence of senior French officials and the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister.
Unlike the rest of France, where strict secular rules dating from 1905 prohibit public funding of new religious buildings, state subsidies are allowed for Catholic, Protestant and Jewish places of worship in Alsace and Moselle because they were then part of Germany. Strasbourg, the capital of the eastern region, later extended the exemption to Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Buddhism and others.
In an open letter to Strasbourg residents addressing the dispute, Barseghian said the city has spent more than € 22m on grants for places of worship since 2008, including € 3.7m for places of worship. mosques. “I deeply regret that our city and its inhabitants have suffered the consequences of these controversies which have fueled fear, hatred and resentment,” she wrote.
Sahin, whose father emigrated from Turkey to work at the Peugeot factory in the city of Mulhouse and who recalls that Muslims borrowed a church there for Friday prayers, was philosophical about the project he defended.
He said the idea for a mosque that could accommodate 2,500 worshipers was to emulate Strasbourg’s other major religious buildings, including its Roman Catholic cathedral. “We said to ourselves, why not do something similar, so that the Muslim culture and the Alsatian culture can get married?
He and two senior Milli Gorus officials from Germany agreed the organization was religiously conservative, but denied that anyone affiliated with it had ever committed a terrorist act.
“What concerns us is that when everything is going well, we are a French organization,” he said. “But when there is a problem, they talk about our origins. . . On the one hand, they ask for integration – even though we have already integrated – but when something is wrong with Islam, they say “You are Turks”. However, I even have an Alsatian accent.
Milli Gorus has now withdrawn his grant application and launched a new fundraising campaign. “We wanted to finish it in 2022 or 2023,” Sahin said. “But I think it will now take until 2024 or 2025.”