The prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis made the trip in person to plead at the bar the justification for the closure of the Pantin mosque, in the Paris suburbs.
The closure of this place of worship came a few days after the assassination by an Islamist terrorist of Professor Samuel Paty.
It was a promise by Emmanuel Macron after the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty: to close places of worship or associations that spread calls to hatred.
In this context, the Pantin mosque, in the Parisian suburbs, was closed by prefectural decree for a period of six months.
The local Muslim Federation has filed an appeal against this decision, which was examined Monday afternoon by the administrative court of Montreuil.
The prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis came himself to plead the position of the State.
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Georges-François Leclerc appeared at the bar before the judge, which is exceptional for this type of procedure.
The man was quite comfortable in the exercise, far from the emotion that the lawyers are trying to arouse.
The senior official simply recalled the proportionality of his decree, the impact of the video denouncing Samuel Paty's course shared with the 98,000 subscribers of the mosque's Facebook page and the Salafist profile of the permanent imam.
"There is a climate, a tension in this country"
A sober but effective speech in response to the more spectacular pleadings of Master William Bourdon, lawyer for the president of the Pantin mosque, who denounced him a prefectural decree in the form of a letter of seal motivated by an inventory à la Prévert.
For this lawyer, it is a potpourri of unfounded suspicions of the fact that "in such or such a mosque, there is an imam who does not have an extraordinary career".
“If we have to make
a somewhat awkward
post (Facebook,
editor's note
) a reason to close mosques, we will close many, many!”, Added Master William Bourdon.
"There is a climate, a tension in this country" which makes "that one cannot imagine that the judges are completely unharmed", finally implied the lawyer.
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The announcement of the withdrawal on Sunday evening of the controversial imam seemed to interest the judge.
The prefect himself welcomed this progress.
If the decree was validated, this could reduce the period of closure of the mosque.
The judgment will be rendered Tuesday morning.