The new bet of the government and more particularly of Gérald Darmanin is clear: to finally find an official partner to manage sensitive issues related to the practice of the Muslim religion in France. After the crash of the French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM), created in 2003 by Nicolas Sarkozy, the Forum de l’islam de France (Forif), launched this Saturday February 5, should in fact make it possible to manage in a more pragmatic way the questions linked to the status and training of imams, but also to chaplaincies, anti-Muslim acts or even the application of the recent “law on separatism”.
Franceinfo answers four questions on the establishment of this new body which will bring together around a hundred players, most of whom are involved in the management of the 2,600 Muslim places of worship in France.
1Why did the executive want to create the Forum de l’islam de France?
Created in 2003 under the leadership of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, the CFrench Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM) aimed to set up an official interlocutor of Islam for the public authorities, as is the case for the other religions in France. The goal was to “Advancing the representation of Islam in France, but twenty years later, it’s a failure”, regrets Kamel Kabtane, the rector of the Great Mosque of Lyon, with our colleagues from France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
Due to too many internal disputes between the eight national federations or representative of the different currents of Islam, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced its dissolution last December. Also in the sights of the executive: the alleged interference of several Muslim states in the representation of Islam in France, including Turkey.
It is therefore the meager results of the CFCM which led the government to launch the Forum de l’islam de France, a new body which must now meet at least once a year.
2What are the main differences with the CFCM?
Inspired by the Deutsche Islam Konferenz launched in Germany in 2006, the Forum de l’islam de France aims to create from “dialogue formats rather than having a single interlocutor”, in the words of the Ministry of the Interior, reported by The world.
The Ministry of the Interior “takes back control of the governance of Islam in France and wants to change interlocutors”, in the ambition “to appeal more to representatives of Islam in the territories”, judge on franceinfo Franck Frégosi, political scientist, director of research at the CNRS and member of the Societies, Religions, Secularism Group.
The Forif will therefore have neither president nor office, unlike the CFCM. The names of its members were sinitially suggested by the regional prefects, before being validated by the Ministry of the Interior. Result: personalities from the Turkish organization of Millî Görüs, some of whom were part of the CFCM, were sidelined.
Three national chaplains for armies, prisons and hospitals, and therefore in connection with the ministries concerned, must also be appointed. Still on the composition side of this new system, about fifteen women must do part of the frames.
Another size change: this “accompanying religious authority” must, according to a summary quoted by AFP, “to determine criteria for the selection of chaplains, in particular with regard to theological and intellectual formation”. Until now, the designation of national chaplains fell within the remit of the CFCM.
3What will Forif’s priorities be?
If the Forif works primarily on the training, recruitment and status of imams, it must also look into the operation of military, prison and hospital chaplaincies. A Forif working document recommends in particular the creation of a “new religious authority for the appointment and support of chaplaincies” to quickly establish the selection criteria for chaplains and disseminate information “theological documentation”.
On the thorny subject of the financing of worship, the executive, on the other hand, preferred not to create a working group within Forif. “Money exists in the Islam of France but it is not used much for believers”, said Gérald Darmanin last Friday, quoted by Release. The boss of the Place Beauvau wishes, to counter this pitfall, the establishment of a kind of denier of the Muslim cult. The control of the halal sector via a possible tax has for the moment been rejected by the government, for fear that it will promote communitarianism.
4Why is Forif already criticized?
Will the hundred actors managing the 2,600 Muslim places of worship throughout the territory really play the game with the State? The refusal of three CFCM federations to sign the Charter of the Principles of Islam in France in January 2021 worried the prefectural authorities at the time. But according to the Ministry of the Interior, questioned by The world, “today there is an appetite for building a healthy relationship with the public authorities”.
Kamel Kabtane, the rector of the great mosque of Lyon, however regrets that the members of Forif are “appointed” and not “elected in their departments”. “Since we are in a democracy, Islam must also be established on democratic foundations”, he says to franceinfo.
The birth of Forif raises the question of the involvement of the State in the organization of a cult. With the risk for the State of appearing too interventionist. “OIt is during an election period so I think that in this device, there is also a part which is to highlight the action of the current government”, reacts the politician Franck Frégosi with franceinfo. In a grandstand at World published on January 31, he believed that Emmanuel Macron wanted, “like so many others before him, leaving his mark” on the organization of Muslim worship, seeing in this new governance “a media operation”.