France: The octopus of islamization
The association La Boussole, which brings together the young people of Les Mureau (Yvelines), has published a directory of Islamic places of worship in France. There are 1,554 of them, from simple rooms for prayer to actual mosques, 188 of which are in the Paris area.
According to the daily Le Parisien, which reported the recent publication of this guide in its edition of April 27, there are in France projects for the expansion or construction of 65 mosques. In the Ile-de-France alone, there are 23 projects under way. Larbi Kechat, a well-known figure in the media, and leader of the mosque in the rue de Tanger, in the 19th arrondissement, had been waiting years for a building permit of a real mosque holding 1500 persons on the site of warehouses. After many hitches, the permit was granted in July 2001. At Cergy too, Muslims (6000 families) should have a mosque worthy of its name by the year 2005. In the department of Essonne other projects are under way, at Corbeil, Montgeron and Vigneux-sur-Seine.
The steps taken by Nicolas Sarkozy seem to add much grist to the mill of the fundamentalists, to such a point that the tenors of moderate and assimilated Islam, have taken offence, such as the Mufti of Marseilles, who declares secession. As a member of the French council for Muslim worship, he denounced the concessions made by Nicolas Sarkozy to the obscurantist and integrist tendency of Islam. Nicolas Sarkozy is confusing rapidity with recklessness, and has not taken into account the lessons to be learnt from Algeria, where President Chadli Bendjedid granted a pseudo-legitimacy to the FIS (Islamic Front of Salvation), he said.
