"The dead have been waiting at the Rungis morgue for three weeks, it's terrible. With the coronavirus crisis, the lack of places dedicated to Muslim worship in cemeteries appears to be glaring in the most affected regions.
In Ile-de-France or Hauts-de-France, rare mayors have already enlarged the Muslim squares of their communal cemeteries. But, for lack of solutions, families and associations turn to the authorities and the justice system.
Dead buried in the direction of Mecca
According to the president of the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM), Mohammed Moussaoui, "in normal times, around 80% of the deceased are buried in their country of origin". And among the 35,000 French cemeteries, only "about 600" have places dedicated to Muslim worship, which notably provides for the dead to be buried within a very short time, in the direction of Mecca.
On Monday, the administrative court dismissed the Tahara association's appeal, ruling that the urgency was not met. His lawyer seized the Council of State. "The implication is to alert the public authorities, and in particular the Ministry of the Interior," says Me Nabil Boudi, who was contacted by the latter.
Overflowing cemeteries
Some mayors have already taken up the problem, as in Gennevilliers (Hauts-de-Seine), where Patrice Leclerc (PCF) has launched work to enlarge the Muslim square in his cemetery. "At this rate, in three weeks, it will be complete". "All the municipalities should have them, I wrote to the prefect to force the mayors to establish Muslim squares," he said.
For a municipality, having a denominational square "is not an obligation," recalls the Association of Mayors of France. However, a 2008 circular encourages elected officials to do so. In Arras (Pas-de-Calais), two faithful of the Annour mosque, a Moroccan and a Sudanese, died at the end of March of the coronavirus and could not be buried in the cemetery of the city.
Only 11 municipalities out of 679 have a Muslim square in the Oise
The mayor of Arras has since enlarged it to create a new Muslim square of 300 m2, on adjoining municipal plots. "It went without saying. We must respect each other's codes to bury their own, ”said Mayor Frédéric Leturque (Les Centristes).
In the Oise, a department which was one of the first centers of the epidemic in France, "the rare cemeteries with a Muslim square are almost all saturated, despite the efforts of the mayors", warns Smaïl Merrakchi, president of the Villers-Saint-Paul mosque and coordinator of a commission to create a dedicated cemetery at the departmental level. "Of the 679 municipalities in the Oise, only 11 have a Muslim square," he insists.
Strasbourg claims to have no tension
"In some cities, the prefecture intervenes to ask mayors to create these spaces," he says. The prefecture of Oise has confirmed that it "sent a letter to the mayors of the department to remind them of the terms of the 2008 circular". She added that she had been “requested by several families and representatives of the Muslim religion of the department regarding the difficulties relating to the burial of their co-religionists. "
In the heart of one of the regions most affected by the virus, the Strasbourg town hall claims that it was not confronted with any "tension" in terms of burial. Since 2012, the capital of Alsace has had the only "Muslim public cemetery" in the country, an exception made possible by local law in force in Alsace-Moselle, which authorizes the subsidization of worship.
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