MARSEILLE, France (AFP) – In a major broadside, President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin rejected a senior government minister’s idea of using state funds to build mosques and train Islamic religious leaders. Chirac obliquely accused his arch rival – Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to seek his job in the 2007 presidential…
Minister of the Interior Domenique de Villepin declared Sunday that he opposed revision of the law of 1905 on secularism, while refusing to “open the Pandora’s box” after his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy had evoked this eventuality. “No, one should not open the revision of the law of 1905”, indicated Mr. de Villepin.
By Jamey Keaten, Associated Press PARIS In a new book seen as a prelude to a presidential bid, France’s finance minister is taking up the thorny question of how to reach out to an increasingly assertive Muslim minority and integrate it into a largely secular society. Nicolas Sarkozy argues his countrymen need to worry less…
