The Implantation of Islam in France

These lengthy excerpts posted at Le Salon Beige are drawn from a longer article at the Centre de recherches sur le terrorisme (center for research on terrorism). The author outlines the implantation of Islam in France from 1922 to the present. I have used LSB as my main source, but included some material from the original article:

The first visible sign of Islam's implantation on French soil goes back to 1922, when the Paris Mosque (above) was completed. (...) Its construction was well-intentioned: to show our gratitude to the North African soldiers for their war effort at our side in the trenches of the First World War. This fine intention was nonetheless vitiated, since it was based on a denial of our laws. Ever since the passage of the December 9,1905 law, known as the separation of Church and State, according to the wording of the law itself, "the Republic does not recognize, salary, or subsidize any religion." (...) Now in order to build the Paris Mosque, the government passed the August 19,1920 law, that permitted the financing of the site and that allowed the City of Paris to furnish the land free of charge. The beginning of the arrival in force of Muslims was in 1962, when those Harkis who had been saved by their officers from the FLN butchery landed in France. We gave them a very poor welcome, reserving greater favor for the next wave - the immigrant workers from the Maghreb. With them began the era of demands.

Note: Two points to retain from the above: 1) a special law had to be passed to build the Paris mosque. The 1905 law, therefore, had been overridden long ago, long before the current wave of mosque financing through long-term leases. 2) The French government and people held the Harkis in contempt. The Harkis were Algerians, often Muslims, recruited to fight on the side of the French in the Algerian War.

The first tensions exploded in the early 1970's, in the housing projects built by Sonacotra. Rent strikes were planned (...) Maoist students were the organizers. Then these left-wingers began making religious demands. They insisted on closing the bars and places of worship in the projects. To calm things down, the State yielded to their demands. Of course, from 1979 on, there was no more talk about such strikes or demonstrations within the projects, but the Republic had revealed its weakness. And in so doing had prepared the way for the Islamists who were already present on our territory.

Note: Sonacotra built housing projects for the immigrant workers.

It all began with the arrival of "Foi et Pratique" (Faith and Practice), in 1962. This organization belongs to the Jamaat Al-Tabligh (...) In groups of two or three, they go into the bars frequented by Maghrebins and tell the customers to break the habit. (...) But already a new Islamist wave had arisen out of the Maghrebin immigration. It combined political demands, identitarian frustration, and religious radicalism. It was to benefit from financial aid from Saudi Arabia. In 1977, Saudi Arabia opened a branch of the World Islamic League in Paris on rue François Bonvin, in the 15th arrondissement. This NGO nourished the hope of converting the entire world to Islam. In order to implant its influence it distributed money to all those who presented an "Islamic project" - to build a mosque or to support a religious association. (...)

Can one speak of a tacit agreement between the French government, Saudi Arabia, and the Muslim Brotherhood? By all indications that was the case. In 1983 the UOIF, or Union of Islamic Organizations of France, was born. It settled into a bourgeois apartment building on rue Dunkerque, in Paris, and had no visible financial difficulties. In fact, the money arrived from Riyad, carried in suitcases by Saudis. The days of distributing money to any and all were over. By making the UOIF their main recipient, they gave it power and imposed on smaller associations to join the Union in order to benefit from Arab subsidies. It was only the first step in the institutionalization of political Islam in France.

Note: The original article points out that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind the birth of the UOIF, while the financing came from Saudi Arabia. The underlying purpose of the UOIF was to put order into chaos, since there was at the time a maze of different Muslim associations and organizations in France. Both the Saudis and the Brotherhood sought the implantation of Islam in France and to achieve this goal, simplification was necessary.

Also a reminder that in 1983 François Mitterand was president.

The reference above to "suitcases" is perhaps an allusion to the Algerian War when those who collaborated with the FLN (National Liberation Front) funneled money into Algeria via suitcases. These collaborators, many of them celebrities, became known as "porteurs de valises", or carriers of suitcases. French readers may want to review that grim story here.

The article explains that even though Saudi individuals had funded the UOIF, Saudi leaders did not like the young idealists who had been rebellious in their homelands. Morocco also felt the same way. In response to the UOIF, therefore, the FNMF was created.

Officially the FNMF (National Federation of Muslims of France) aimed "to represent the Islam of France", at the expense of the Paris Mosque. The UOIF was urged to join the new organization, to meld into it. A way of committing hara-kiri. Adroitly, the UOIF yielded, but kept its own identity and structures. The FNMF eventually claimed to represent 500 Muslim associations, a figure no doubt inflated. Within the FNMF, one country - Morocco - became particularly influential. When two founding members of the UOIF, one Tunisian, one Iraqi, were removed, they were replaced by two Moroccans.

The French authorities attempted to find a way to exert control over the development of the Muslim religion. Eventually, the CFCM (French Council on the Muslim Religion) was created in 2003 by Nicolas Sarkozy, then Interior Minister under Jacques Chirac. It was an idea that transcended the division between Left and Right and became instead an integral part of government policy.

Originally it was meant to give the government a tool comparable to the one Napoleon I used when he created the Consistory to force the rabbis to place the laws of the State above Jewish law. But times have changed. If, under Napoleon, the majority of Frenchmen practiced a religion, it is not the same today. In 1808, the Consistory received the vote of nearly all the Jews and gathered under its aegis all schools of Hebraic thought. In 2003, however, only Islamists, and not all practicing Muslims, belong to religious organizations such as the UOIF and the FNMF. Moreover, representatives of such organizations, rather than independent individuals, sit at the CFCM. (...) In other words, by creating the CFCM, Sarkozy ensured a legitimacy of the FNMF and the UOIF in the eyes of the ensemble of Muslims in the country. Better yet, he gave them an authority - for example, in the matter of the slaughter of animals for halal meat and the training of imams.

Note: This "authority" granted by Sarkozy to the CFCM is tantamount to saying that sharia law is above French law, at least on certain issues. Sarkozy's motives in creating the CFCM were therefore far from benign. And all of this is a far cry from the original intentions underlying the building of the Paris Mosque.

Finally, we see that despite internal disputes and differences among the Muslims, they all had the same goal: to implant Islam firmly on French soil.