The French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM) is a privileged partner of the public authorities.
As part of the bill against separatism, a mission has even been entrusted to this representative body to overhaul the structure of worship and in particular to review the training of imams.
The words of its president Mohammed Moussaoui however risk weakening this good understanding.
Tuesday, at the microphone of BFMTV and on the FranceInfo site, the latter held an ambivalent position on the publication of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
While refusing to call for their ban, he suggested limiting their dissemination to avoid fueling extremism.
And this in the name of the "duty of fraternity".
In short, he considers that freedom of expression, and here to caricature, is not "absolute" on the ground of faith.
The fear of instrumentalisation by fundamentalists
For example, the president of the French Council for Muslim Worship “does not want” these drawings to be shown in schools.
"I do not think this is the right solution to explain freedom of expression to children," he told FranceInfo.
I don't want to.
There are other ways of explaining mutual respect, respect for each other's freedoms.
At that age, you have to respect the feelings of these children.
"
Invited on BFMTV, Mohammed Moussaoui held much the same speech, proposing to "renounce certain rights" to "preserve public order".
"Muslims in France should ignore cartoons," he advocates, taking the Prophet Muhammad as a model.
But at the same time, he expresses his fear that these will be instrumentalized by certain fundamentalist voices.
"Extremists will stir up by all means and show these cartoons as an offense," he added.
A little later, the CFCM tried to synthesize its comments on Twitter in a series of messages.
“Allowing cartoonists to publish in media that anyone could freely choose to view is one thing.
Forcing them on everyone by projecting them onto public buildings or showing them to children in a compulsory education setting is another thing ”, we can read in particular.
He is referring here to the projection of several cartoons on the buildings of the Occitanie region in Toulouse and Montpellier in response to the assassination of Samuel Paty.
Allowing cartoonists to publish in media that anyone could freely choose to view is one thing.
Forcing them on everyone by projecting them on public buildings or showing them to children in a compulsory education setting is another thing.
- CFCM (@CfcmOfficiel) October 27, 2020
There is no doubt that this release is about to split in the public debate.
Valérie Boyer, Senator LR of Bouches-du-Rhône, already sees on Twitter "the program of Islamism" and Thibaut de Montbrial, lawyer of the former journalist of Charlie Hebdo, Zineb el Rhazoui, a "very disturbing position" .
Macron "does not encourage the publication of these cartoons"
Monday evening, however, the time was unanimous when Mohammed Moussaoui left the Elysee.
At the end of his meeting with Emmanuel Macron, he called for "defending the interest" of France, faced with a wave of calls for boycott in a number of countries of the Muslim faith.
"France is a great country, Muslim citizens are not persecuted, they freely build their mosques and freely practice their worship," he said at the time, even supporting the position of the French president who, according to him, "calls for not give up caricature, all caricatures, under pressure from terrorists ”.
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To read in detail the interview he gave Tuesday morning to FranceInfo, Mohammed Moussaoui believes that the French president shares his opinion on these highly sensitive issues.
“Personally, (Emmanuel Macron) is not for carrying the cartoons and publishing them anywhere.
He does not encourage the publication of these cartoons, ”he said.
