The French government is looking for a new interlocutor among the Muslims of France. For nearly twenty years, it was the French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM), a group of federations of mosques. But faced with the dissensions within it, the Minister of the Interior estimated in mid-December that the institution was dead.
This Wednesday, the mandate of its president, Mohamed Moussaoui, comes to an end. A step that could also mark the official death of the CFCM. Mohamed Moussaoui says he is frustrated. After two years in office, he can only agree with Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin: “ The current CFCM format is not viable. »
A year ago, the government’s request to adopt a charter reaffirming the compatibility of Islam with the French Republic ended up dividing the eight federations that make up the French Council for Muslim Worship.
For Mohamed Moussaoui, we must therefore move on. To a more legitimate organization than the CFCM, which represents only a third of the mosques in France.
” This is what I proposed in 2015: the departmentalization of the Muslim faith, in which the federations do not appear. It will erase these compartmentalizations in which the Muslim faith has locked itself. I would say that this is the sine qua non condition for moving on to an Islam in France that is truly rid of its influences from the federations of the countries of origin. »
Rid, in other words, of a tendency to consular Islam. Most CFCM federations are indeed linked to a community: Algerian, Moroccan, Turkish or even Comorian.
Mohamed Moussaoui therefore supports the government’s initiative, the Forum de l’islam de France (Forif), which could well give birth to a new interlocutor for the authorities. The Forif aims to identify local actors, ready to advance priority projects for Paris such as the supervision of the training of imams.