French authorities are filing preliminary charges of “attempted murder with anti-Semitic motives” against three suspects charged with beating a Jewish teenager on June 21st in Paris, who later spent two days in a coma. Libération newspaper claims that such altercations are on the rise among youth gangs in the 19th district of Paris. The June…
French president Nicolas Sarkozy recently defended the notion of “positive secularism” which allows place for religion in the public sphere. While Sarkozy has not introduced any real reform, making the statement in speeches in Rome in December 2007 and in Riyad in January 2008, the suggestion has created fierce debate. In the past Sarkozy has…
Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris and leader of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) since 2003, announced the Paris Grand Mosque will boycott the June 8, 2008 vote. Boubakeur has said, This is no way to organize Islam in France because larger, older mosques will be privileged in the…
The French Council of state will soon make a decision regarding the request by Muslim students at the Antony student residence in the Hauts-de-Seine for a prayer room, which has been closed since January 2nd. While the space had previously been used for more than 30 years as a prayer room, it was evacuated at…
French president Nicolas Sarkozy is scheduled to visit the vandalized Muslim tombs in the military cemetery at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette in the Pas-de-Calais on April 24th. The visit will coincide with the 90th anniversary commemoration of the end of the First World War, and was announced following Sarkozy’s meeting with a delegation from the Muslim community organized…
