Next Friday, France's highest administrative court will consider a request by the Ministry of the Interior to extradite Moroccan imam Hassan Echoessen.
It is expected that the State Council’s decision regarding the imam who holds Moroccan citizenship will be issued within the next 48 hours.
On July 28, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced the expulsion of French-born Moroccan Islamic preacher Echoessen.
Minister Darmanan had attributed - in a tweet to him on his Twitter account - the deportation of this preacher to Morocco to the fact that he "has been adopting, for years, a hate speech against the values of France, which contradicts the principles of secularization and equality between men and women."
"The judiciary will decide," said Equisen's lawyer, Lucy Simon, noting that the imam "does not pose a threat to public security."
Earlier this month, a French court suspended the decision to deport the Moroccan imam.
In its decision, the Paris Administrative Court considered that "the only reason based on the existence of acts of explicit incitement cannot justify the expulsion proceedings without seriously and disproportionately compromising his right to live a normal private and family life."
In an interview published in the newspaper "Le Journal du Dimanche", the Minister of the Interior confirmed that he was "surprised by the decision".
It is worth noting that, since taking over the file to defend the Moroccan imam, lawyer Simon has received several threatening letters.
Equisen, 58, has an attractive personality that helped him convince tens of thousands of young people of his approach, both in the virtual world through social networks, where they follow him on his Facebook page and his YouTube channel (150,000 followers).