«French Muslims and Macaron»… Search for a political mechanism to manage the affairs of the community

The affairs of Muslims in France are managed by associations that supervise the places of worship and organize religious events.

These associations are governed by the Council of the Islamic Religion, a governmental institution established in 2003 to be the official representative of Muslims in the country.

Bernard Jodar, a former adviser to former Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Schuvinmann, and former deputy minister of the ministry’s portfolio, were behind the formation of the council.

However, the current French president, Emmanuel Macaron, wants to change the mechanism of dealing with the Muslims and find a new equation.

He said in an interview last February that he intends to reconsider the state’s way of supervising the Islamic religion.

Macron added in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche: “I want to change the mechanism of dealing with the Muslims, and find a new equation and reconsider the way the state in the supervision of the Islamic religion.

French media published reports said that Macron wanted help from Hakim Al-Qarawi, a French-educated academician, to be his adviser on Muslim affairs.

The Montagni Institute for Research and Studies published a report entitled “The Making of Islamic Extremism

Al-Qarawi talked in this report about the need to put an end to what he called the “Islamic threat” to France and its values, because of the spread of fundamentalist and Salafi ideology among young people.

He also recommended the establishment of an institution independent of the French Council of the Islamic Faith, which sponsors projects to finance the role of Muslim worship and a financial watchdog to investigate financial flows and confiscate the funds of mosques and Islamic organizations.

He proposed a tax on “halal” products to finance mosques, and called Muslims to reclaim their religion from extremists.

He considered that teaching Arabic language in public schools promotes the prevention of radical ideas, as children and young people go to mosques supervised by extremists to learn Arabic.

The reactions of members of the Muslim community differed from what was mentioned in this report, including Marwan Mohammed, the former head of the Coordination against Islamophobia in France, who launched an online campaign in mosques and a number of activists and intellectuals during the holy month of Ramadan, to alert Muslims and educate them about their religion and their fate within French society.

In a press conference on Sunday, Mohammed presented recommendations and proposals that a special scientific committee has been monitoring and purifying since mid-June, among the ideas in the participants’ contributions, saying that the goal is to “push the Muslims to control their own destiny.”

The first is the institutional organization of Muslims at the national level; the second is the problems and issues related to the conditions of the members of the community, such as: the status of women or the organization of Hajj, and the latest proposals for the issues under discussion, especially regarding the funding and management of associations and mosques.

The former president of the Coordination of Anti-Islamophobia in France spoke of the origin of the idea of the campaign, which came from a simple observation that Muslims are upset about excluding them from issues that concern them before others, and their suggestions on their religion and fate.