Nicolas Daragon explains exclusively on France Bleu Drôme Ardèche this Tuesday morning after the cancellation of the sale of land to the Muslim school in the city by the municipal council.
The city council canceled the sale of land in the city in favor of the Muslim school which wanted to expand. However, you voted for this sale at the last city council. It was in June. Why this turnaround?
Nicolas Daragon: Because you have to stick to the facts. We voted last June 27 a deliberation that moved a lot of people, associations, media. And so, we had to take their reactions into consideration. We also had a surge of malicious remarks. So I decided to question the State again on this file. I questioned the Interministerial Committee for the Prevention of Delinquency and Radicalization and I got an alert response from the prefect. This first response was added to an appeal on the conditions of the deliberation, a recommendation on the consumption of land in this district as well. And so we decided to go back on this deliberation and it was the state that made us do it.
Yet you had initially agreed to sell the communal land?
Nicolas Daragon: Because this school was created in 2012 and monitored every year by National Education with extremely positive reports. In 2019, she asked to go under contract and on three occasions, the State, through the voice of National Education, said that it was in favor of a contract, on condition of changing premises. Because on December 28, I asked the prefecture to receive the project leaders to give us an opinion and until the vote on the deliberation of June 27, no alert was given to us. There is even a total inconsistency between the information provided to us by the State before the deliberation and ultimately the information provided to us after the deliberation. Which brings us to an extremely complicated and unacceptable situation.
Alerts, suspicions in any case of radicalism. The prefecture asked you in the summer to reconsider this sale. In what terms exactly?
Nicolas Daragon: On legal grounds which taint the State’s responses with illegality. It is difficult for me to deliver them in extenso. It is up to the prefecture to say exactly what is going on. Personally, I very sincerely regret this lack of clarity and consistency, even consistency in the State’s line of conduct. If it had been different, I don’t think we would be in this situation.
Would you have liked state services to highlight the supposed links of the school with the Muslim Brotherhood movement?
Nicolas Daragon: In our country, the country of the Enlightenment, it’s either we are in the Republic, or we are outside the Republic. The rule applies to everyone, to the Values and Success school as well. If this non-contract private school is in the Republic, then it deserves to be supported, treated like all non-contract private schools. If it is outside the Republic, then it should be banned. And that’s the question I’m asking today. That means that the answers we got from the prefecture question me today. How is it that the school made its 11th comeback quietly last September? There is a total inconsistency. I would even say that there is a form of cowardice on the part of the State. And I would add that the legislative system in France means that there is no arsenal available to move forward on this type of file. I am not attacking the local State, I am saying that the legal arsenal available is not suitable and that at some point everything is fine and in this case, we must sell this land and this school must build for the benefit of children. Either it is the situation that is described to me by the State at the local level and in this case, at the national level, the Ministry of the Interior must take measures.
But if you feel that there is no problem with this school, why do you finally give in to the State?
Nicolas Daragon: Because I don’t have teaching skills. It means that I don’t go to this school to control the quality of teaching. And National Education has said from the start that it’s wonderful. And two, I don’t have jurisdiction over internal intelligence. It means that I don’t investigate people, I don’t know what they are doing, that’s not my job. And so when, before June 27, I don’t have an alert and after June 27, I have all these alerts, I step back, that’s obvious, and I leave the State fulfill its missions.
The School has already announced that it will file a complaint for discrimination. The city faces appeals. Are you ready for it?
Nicolas Daragon: Of course, but we will assume our responsibilities on condition that the State assumes its own. And the question is there, in truth. It is indeed the responsibility of the State to decide whether this school is adapted to the rules of education. This school is suitable, for example, for the law on separatism, since this is the subject that has been discussed on several occasions. Me, I feel serene today because I fulfilled my part of the mission.