Nearly a week after the march against anti-Semitism that saw 182,000 people march in France on Sunday, November 12, 2023, the imam of Drancy and president of the Conference of Imams of France, Hassen Chalghoumi, returns to “Ouest-France” on the low participation of representatives of his religion and stresses the importance of a Jewish-Muslim dialogue, despite the conflict in the Middle East.
“This Sunday, we must all be Jews, as we were all Charlie in 2015 and as we could all be Muslims one day,” the president of the Conference of Imams of France and voice of the mosque of Drancy (Seine-Saint-Denis), Hassen Chalghoumi, told Le Parisien on Saturday, November 11, 2023, on the eve of the republican march against anti-Semitism which saw 182,000 people march in France.
A defender of the Republic, a slayer of Muslim fundamentalism and an architect of interreligious dialogue, Hassen Chalghoumi’s positions have enabled him to become, in nearly twenty years, a religious leader who has received the media as well as who is appreciated by the French authorities. They also led him to become a hunted man, placed with his family under police protection.
The imam does not have a consensus among the members of his community and irritates the most radical who accuse him at best of being an “opportunist”, at worst a “Zionist mop”. In our society strained by the war between Israel and Hamas and marked by an explosion of anti-Semitic acts, he reminds Ouest-France of the importance of maintaining a Jewish-Muslim dialogue, by analyzing the dangers and challenges that his religion is facing today.
The civic march against anti-Semitism brought together more than 180,000 people in France last Sunday. You were there, what is your assessment of this mobilization?
I responded to the call made by the presidents of the National Assembly and the Senate, because it was above all a republican appeal against anti-Semitism. A call for peace, a bearer of hope and fraternity. I was “Charlie” and “Samuel Paty”. It therefore seemed normal to me to call for people to be “Jewish” this Sunday, despite the criticism. This gathering was simply the Republic, without slogans or hatred. I saw a united people who were able to show the world that hatred, this poison that tears our society apart in whatever form, has no place in France. This march was a great victory over the divisions.
You are one of the few imams to have invited Muslim bodies to come “in force” to this gathering. In France, the Catholics have a clergy and the Jews a Consistory, both of which are authoritative. Who represents Islam?
Islam is a new religion, even if we have been debating its organization for more than thirty years. After the attacks, our country often wonders why our community does not react. It’s a silent community. It has several voices because there are many divergences, but this diversity that characterizes it is also a richness in my eyes. It is made up of French individuals, but also of Moroccan, Tunisian, Egyptian, Algerian, Senegalese and Malian origins. For my part, I am one voice among others, but it is my duty to remind you that there are many of us who share this vision of wanting to live in peace.
Anti-Semitism is not a subject for polemics.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) refused to go to the march, on the grounds that it did not take into account Islamophobia and was therefore not likely to “bring people together”. Are these two fights antagonistic?
These people are irresponsible and their position of victimhood does our community a disservice. One must be blind not to see that, since October 7, the Jews have been attacked. When we defend the Jewish community, we fully defend our faith, because a true Muslim cannot accept the idea that a human being is threatened and lives in fear like some of our fellow citizens. This competition is therefore particularly revolting, but I think that this strategy is the result of bodies that influence the CFCM and the Great Mosque of Paris to make recuperation. These weak people are looking for excuses not to come, through their political colour or their religion. They bring communities face to face. No matter what our vision or our confession, we had to be present, as Hassen, David and Michel, quite simply.
For its part, the Union of French Muslim Democrats (UDMF) has made it known that it refuses to march with the far right and “unconditional supporters of a colonial state”. How did you perceive the presence of the latter?
I am a man of faith, not a politician, but the fight against anti-Semitism is not a subject for polemics. This is the message that I repeated tirelessly for a week. The most important thing for me was to see the French people come together. If parties, whatever their labels, march against anti-Semitism, so much the better. I believe that they cannot be excluded, having been rejected myself. We are entering an extremely difficult period and only clarity and courage count. Without them, we know that history will never forgive us.
This rally was also marked by the low mobilization of French youth. As such, a number of your peers consider that your speech has the effect of a “repellent” on young Muslims. Why?
I would like to know why there is so much hatred against me. I just think that my calls are echoed and that it bothers them. Why didn’t the youth mobilize en masse? I don’t know. First, some have already been mobilizing in colleges and high schools since the war in the Middle East, especially on the far left. Secondly, these young people have not yet lived through war to know the true values of peace. She spends a lot of time on Snapchat and TikTok, where there is a lot of misinformation. Parents, the National Education, social networks and the media have work to do to prevent them from tipping over to extremes.
You have been threatened since your meditation at the Shoah memorial in Drancy in 2005. Have these threats worsened with the context we know in the Middle East?
I pay dearly for my friendship with the Jews. Since October 7 and Israel’s bombing of Gaza, I have clearly become a target again. You know, I am the imam of a city that experienced the Holocaust and the very example of the rapprochement between the Jewish community and Muslims. My detractors call me “the imam of the Jews”. For me, it’s an honor, but for anti-Semitic Arabs, “Jew” is still an insult. On TikTok and social media, I receive a tsunami of hate. Some people make fun of my accent, but I have the same as their parents, and I have my love for France. I am subjected to threats, insults and calls at 3 a.m. I even received a video from Daesh targeting me by name and I filed a complaint. Fortunately, it’s a minority and we resist, we try. My discourse has been the same for twenty years, but the world has changed.
I am proud of our republican system, even if it is disturbing.
The Grand Mosque of Paris denounced in early November the “gradual liberation” of “racist and hateful” speech against Muslims in France, in the midst of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Do you share the concern of its rector, Chems-eddine Hafiz?
After the attacks in France, we were able to suffer amalgams and a wave of aggression against Muslims and our places of prayer. But here, the context has nothing to do with it. On social networks as well as in some mosques, Jews are victims of calls to murder! Imams in Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and the Gard have also been convicted by the courts and I am pleased about that. Dangerous people are in the process of uniting our communities with each other. Moreover, this march was not at all organized against Muslims, as I have heard. I have not heard a single racist slogan. Finally, if we are victims of racism tomorrow, I am convinced that our Jewish and Christian compatriots and the whole of society will be on our side.
Do you fear an aggravation in France of intra-community tensions linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like those currently tearing apart multicultural societies such as the United States and the United Kingdom?
In terms of consequences, October 7 is worse for me than September 11. In the United States as in the United Kingdom, a large number of young people shout “death to the Jews”, Islamists spit out Hamas slogans. These multicultural systems seek social peace and now they are fighting together, accusing France of racism when it wants to ban the wearing of the abaya in schools. I am proud of our republican system, even if it is disturbing. There are failures of course, but it is alive and well and resists in the face of communitarianism. Our model of liberty, equality and fraternity between Mohammed, David or Martine, protects us from divisions.
You insinuated earlier that several Muslim organs in France were under influence. What do you mean by that?
Islam in France is hostage to foreign interference. Look at the statements of certain imams close to the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF, now Muslims of France) or the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM). They are mostly modern figures that I respect, but behind them are very powerful associations, including the Millî Görüş, the equivalent of the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood, which is part of the executive council of the CFCM.
In 2021, the current Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, said that this association went “against the values of the Republic”. Is political Islam his enemy?
Before being the enemy of the Republic, political Islam is the enemy of Islam and Muslims. It is a poison that destroys society. We must not forget that this speech made it possible to send young French people who had gone through the school of the Republic to Iraq and Syria. Today, we can perfectly well support the Palestinian cause, but we cannot support Hamas, these criminal barbarians who rape, kill, behead and burn. Yes, political Islam is, in my opinion, the No. 1 enemy of the Republic and I call on all political parties to wake up and put in place a legal arsenal to fight against the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafism and their hate speech. The separatism law is not enough! Preserve society from division, preserve Muslims.
Islam in France is a slogan, but it is also a dream, my dream.
So what is this “Islam of France” that you have been advocating for so many years?
Islam in France is a slogan, but it is also a dream, my dream. It is an Islam that adapts to this country. There are several interpretations of Islam. It is not practiced in Tunisia in the same way as in Indonesia, Morocco, Iran or Turkey. Why shouldn’t the practices of Islam adapt to France? Let us take its most modern, spiritual reading, the one that respects this country and its land, where our women and children were born. France is sacred, our teachers are sacred, our police officers are sacred. It must be repeated.
Where should we start?
To have an Islam in France, we need a strong and independent body that trains imams in a clear discourse and structures their Friday sermons. It must not be managed by Algeria, Turkey or small groups linked to other countries. We also need to train mediators in the neighborhoods to talk about anti-Semitism, faith and true jihad. We have to tell them that our references in France are not those of Qatar, Hamas or Turkey and keep them away from it. Like Martin Luther King, I have my dream. A few days ago, I launched an appeal on social networks for all sermons in France and Europe to remind us of the extent to which the Muslim faith rejects hatred, violence and injustice. I hope I have not preached in a desert.
