The French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM) could legally end its activities on February 19 at an extraordinary general meeting organized for the occasion by the members of this organization. The authority, long interlocutor of the public authorities, which currently knows an atmosphere at the very least of the most agitated probably lives its last days.
Indeed, some of the good news tellers predict that the CFCM could even disintegrate these days in favor of a new body, the Forif, modeled on the German model and which will be announced next week by the government. As of tomorrow, Mohammed Moussaoui, elected head of the CFCM (French Council for Muslim Worship) in January 2020, will officially leave office. It is in principle Chems-eddine Hafiz rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, who was to succeed him for two years, under the terms of the agreement reached during the 2020 elections. In view of the current situation, we are far from it. In the meantime, the members of the CFCM office will continue their mission, in a collegial manner, until the holding of the said extraordinary general meeting, from which will result either a total overhaul of the institution (very unlikely), or its dissolution in favor of ‘another one.
A last burst which marks the end of an era for the representation of Islam in France which represents the second religion with the public authorities. On December 12, Gérald Darmanin described the representative body of the Muslim faith as ” death ” saying that, ” The CFCM, for the public authorities, no longer exists, is no longer the interlocutor of the Republic “. Several explanations have been put forward: the excessive influence of foreign countries, a ” consular islam “unbreakable in the eyes of the government, crystallized by the division of the member federations of the CFCM, three of which refused to sign a charter attesting to the compatibility of Islam in France with the “values of the Republic”. The federations in question, the Coordinating Committee of Turkish Muslims in France (CCMTF), the Muslim association Millî Görüş, close to Turkey and Faith & Practice, have since returned, a little late we will say, to their position, and agreed to sign the charter on December 25, 2021 but without success.
Still, on February 19, 2022, we should act or formalize the dissolution of the CFCM and the situation is not without being sad in view of the press releases and blows from its members or ex-members who have left or not , the wrecked boat. On the one hand we have the resistants (the Great Mosque of Paris, the French Federation of Islamic Associations of Africa, the Comoros and the West Indies, Muslims of France and the Rally of Muslims of France) and on the other, the four federations who remained there (the Union of French Mosques, the Coordinating Committee of Turkish Muslims in France, the Islamic Confederation Milli Gorus France and Faith and Practice).
For the time being, it has been announced that from January 20 the CFCM will be led by a collegiate presidency made up of the two vice-presidents who have not resigned from the office. The date of this general meeting has been set for February 19, the sole agenda of which will be the vote on the following resolution: “Dissolution of the CFCM to allow actors of the Muslim faith at the local level to set up a new form of democratic representation of the Muslim faith”.
For the French Executive, there is no question of dissolving the association as such, but of gradually replacing it with a more efficient organization that is more in line with the stated objectives of the government. As Emmanuel Macron confirmed on January 5, a Forum for Islam in France (Forif) is about to be created, which will rely on representatives of the Muslim faith previously identified to participate in the territorial foundations of the Islam of France, the latest of which date from the spring of 2021. Paradoxically, if the current president of the CFCM opposes the comments made by Gérald Darmanin, he agrees on this point with the will of the government. “ The CFCM, as it exists today, is no longer viable and cannot be reformed from within, so from this point of view, the initiative of the public authorities is in line with the reform proposal that I have -even formulated from 2017 ».
Indeed, the Forif, wanted by the government, would emanate more from the field. A desire that joins that of Mohammed Moussaoui, whose proposal for the “departmentalization” of the CFCM was blocked in July 2021 due to internal disputes within the body. But whose intention was the same: on the one hand, to make the CFCM more legitimate by giving a voice to members from civil society, including women, and more aware of the realities on the ground at the local, and on the other hand ” get rid of the tutelage of the federations and references to the countries of origin “. summarized Moussaoui.