The French government announced on Saturday the formation of a new body responsible for reforming Islam as a whole in France, as part of President Emmanuel Macron's efforts to rid the Muslim religion here of extremist elements, the American news agency AP reported on Saturday.
The governing body of the organization called the Islamic Forum of France (FIF) will consist of religious and secular leaders who will help the largest Muslim community in Western Europe with their work. Each member of the FIF leadership will be personally selected by the French government, and at least a quarter of them will be women.
"We must move with the times," declared French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin at the FIF's opening ceremony in Paris on Saturday in the Economic, Social and Environmental Protection Council. "We will restart relations between the state and religion..., based on a new kind of dialogue that will be more open, inclusive and representative of Muslim diversity in France," he said.
France has seen several bloodbaths by extremist Islamic attackers in recent years, and hundreds of French citizens have joined jihadist fighters in Syria in the past ten years. According to a part of the French, radicalization is a real danger in the country, but critics say that behind the government's efforts there are actually political considerations: this is how Macron is trying to lure right-wing voters to his centrist party before the April 10 French presidential election.
According to supporters of the government plan, the FIF will help preserve the security of France - and its five million Muslim citizens - and ensure that the practice of Islam in France complies with one of the country's most important historical traditions: the separation of state and religion in political and public life.
However, critics of the government effort, including many Muslim citizens who see Islam as part of their French identity, believe the government's initiative is just another step towards institutionalized discrimination that blames the entire Muslim community for violent attacks carried out by a few extremists. and the government's move will only create another obstacle in their lives.
The creation of the FIF also abolishes the former French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), which was established in 2003 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior and later President of France. The CFCM played a kind of mediating role between the French government and the religious leaders.
Islam is the second most common religion in France, which has no single leader, and there are many varieties, from moderate Islam to strict Salafists to openly radical communities.
Under President Macron's initiative, imams would be trained locally in France, rather than being called in from Turkey, Morocco or Algeria, a move supported by many members of the Muslim community. The government plan also breaks with the concept of a central organization of Muslim imams and religious leaders.
Muslims in France are divided by a government plan. Some of the Muslim faithful who came to pray at the Grand Mosque in Paris on Friday cautiously welcomed the initiative, while others fear that it will go too far in restricting their religion, or believe that the government only targeted Muslim institutions, but would not propose similar changes in the case of Christian organizations.
MTI
Cover photo: Demonstrators hang a effigy of Emmanuel Macron from a crane during a protest against the French president's caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and statements about Islam in Herat, western Afghanistan on October 30, 2020. Photo: Jalil Rezaji / MTI/EPA)
