Praying in Paris streets outlawed
Praying in the streets of Paris is against the law starting Friday, after the
interior minister warned that police will use force if Muslims, and those of
any other faith, disobey the new rule to keep the French capital's public
spaces secular.
Claude Guéant promised the new legislation would be followed to the letter Photo: AFP/GETTY
Henry Samuel, Paris
Claude Guéant said that ban could later be extended to the rest of France,
in particular to the Mediterranean cities of Nice and Marseilles, where "the
problem persists".
He promised the new legislation would be followed to the letter as it "hurts
the sensitivities of many of our fellow citizens".
"My vigilance will be unflinching for the law to be applied. Praying in
the street is not dignified for religious practice and violates the
principles of secularism, the minister told Le Figaro newspaper.
"All Muslim leaders are in agreement," he insisted.
In December when Marine Le Pen, then leader-in-waiting of the far-Right
National Front, sparked outrage by likening
the practice to the Nazi occupation of Paris in the Second World War "without
the tanks or soldiers". She said it was a "political act of
fundamentalists".
More than half of right-wing sympathisers in France agreed with Marine Le Pen,
at least one poll suggested.
Nicolas Sarkozy's party denounced the comments, but the President called for a
debate on Islam and secularism and went on to say that multiculturalism had
failed in France.
Following the debate, Mr Guéant promised a countrywide ban "within
months", saying the "street is for driving in, not praying".
In April, a ban on wearing the full Islamic veil came into force. Holland
today became the third European country to ban the burka, after Belgium,
despite the fact fewer than 100 Dutch women are thought to wear the
face-covering Islamic dress.
Yesterday, Mr Guéant said the prayer problem was limited to two roads in the
Goutte d'Or district of Paris's eastern 19th arrondissement, where "more
than a thousand" people blocked the street every Friday.
However, a stroll through several districts in Paris on a Friday suggests that
Muslims spill into the streets outside many mosques.
Under an agreement signed this week, believers will be able to use the
premises of a vast nearby fire station while awaiting the construction of a
bigger mosque.
"We could go as far as using force if necessary (to impose the ban), but
it's a scenario I don't believe will happen, as dialogue (with local
religious leaders) has born fruit," he said.
Sheikh Mohamed salah Hamza, in charge of one of the Parisian mosques which
regularly overflows, said he would obey the new law, but complained: "We
are not cattle" and that he was "not entirely satisfied" with
the new location. He said he feared many believers would continue to prefer
going to the smaller mosque.
Public funding of places of religious worship is banned under a 1905 law
separating church and state. Mr Guéant said that there were 2,000 mosques in
France with half being built in the past ten years.
France has Europe's largest Muslim population, with an estimated five million
in total.
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