Europe 1 with AFP 5:13 p.m., February 05, 2022

The French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM) gives way this Saturday to the Forum for Islam in France (Forif).

On this occasion, Gérald Darmanin urged Muslims to write a "new page" in the organization of their worship, and promised to help them create a "status" and "social protection" for imams.

Gérald Darmanin urged Muslims on Saturday to write a "new page" in the organization of their worship, and promised to help them create a "status" and "social protection" for imams, during the first plenary session of the Forum de l'islam de France.

"Today we must write a new page"

"Today we have to write a new page", declared the Minister of the Interior before a few hundred personalities of the Muslim faith - for the most part actors in the field from the departments - gathered at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council in Paris.

"This renewed dialogue with the State will now be based on women and men who derive their legitimacy from their work and their logic in the field", he added, pleading for "a new form of dialogue that is more open, more diverse, more representative of the diversity of Islam in France".

"From now on, there will no longer be", for the public authorities, "a single representative of the Muslim faith, competent on all subjects, but collectives organized by theme to obtain concrete results", he said, wanting to learn from the "failures" of the French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM), which had been the privileged interlocutor of the public authorities since 2003, but was undermined by internal struggles.

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"Get Organized!"

“Get organized!” he told them.

In the morning, four working groups examined four subjects considered to be priorities: the organization of chaplaincies (military, penitentiary, hospital), the professionalization of imams, the application of the so-called law against "separatism" and finally the securing of places of worship and anti-Muslim acts.

On the first subject, Gérald Darmanin assured that the government would be "alongside" Muslims "so that imams have a status" and in particular "social protection".

During the works, it was proposed to launch a fifth reflection, relating to the question of "transparent financing of the Muslim faith", "nerve of war" according to the minister, who welcomed the initiative.