Containment: why large mosques will remain closed

Do not reopen, rather than create frustration, even scandal.

This is the bias of the great mosques of Seine-Saint-Denis, but also of Paris and the inner suburbs as a whole, while the government announced the authorization of religious gatherings in places of worship from this Saturday, on condition of respecting a maximum gauge of thirty faithful.

"It is impractical under good conditions", answer many rectors of Seine-Saint-Denis.

Thus, the doors of the main mosques will remain closed for the 700,000 Muslims in the department.

How to choose the 30 lucky ones?

In Montfermeil, for example, the calculation was quickly done.

This mosque-pavilion welcomes, during Friday prayers, 750 people in two offices.

A figure already divided by two since the start of the health crisis to respect social distancing!

“When I learned that a 30-person gauge was set, I understood that it was not necessary to reopen, so as not to create frustration.

Because we would have to leave the faithful at the door, ”summarizes Farid Kachour, the head of the Sociocultural and Educational Association of Montfermeil (ASCEM).

Who is ironic about the solutions that could have been put in place: "Who should be given priority?"

The most generous on the quest?

The most assiduous?

Or, I create a priority card… I prefer to laugh about it!

"

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The idea is also to avoid the crowds of faithful driven back in front of mosques, or even street prayers.

“Accepting this gauge would have created problems: if 750 people move but only thirty of them can enter, some may want to pray on the spot.

And we know the reaction of the authorities in the event of street prayer: it is the police for sure, ”adds Farid Kachour.

Farid Kachour, responsible for the mosque of Montfermeil.

LP / ARNAUD JOURNOIS  

Same story, elsewhere in 9-3, in the mosques of Aubervilliers, Saint-Denis, Tremblay-en-France, Neuilly-sur-Marne, Noisy-le-Grand, Rosny-sous-Bois, Stains, or again Aulnay-sous-Bois.

The latter, the largest in the department with its almost 3,000 faithful per Friday, had yet experienced strict health rules between the two confinements: hydroalcoholic gel at the entrance, physical distancing of 1.5 m per person, obligation to do his ablutions at home, to bring his own Koran and his own carpet, as well as regular disinfection of the premises.

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"Our exemplary nature must influence the government in the direction of a reopening, recently hoped its manager, Yacine Laoudi.

With these rules, my mosque was not the scene of any major contamination.

»Alas: the enormous building, installed in the heart of the city of the Rose-des-Vents, will also remain closed.

The Great Mosque of Paris advises to keep the door closed

So the faithful philosophize.

And take their troubles patiently.

Like Mohamed, a regular at the Aulnay mosque.

“We will continue to pray at home.

It would not make sense to pray at 30. There would be a line all day in front of the mosque, the older ones would be confused.

It's counterproductive!

"

The non-reopening is anyway the advice issued by the Grand Mosque of Paris to its affiliated mosques - around thirty in the metropolitan area of ​​the capital alone.

“We had proposed to the government the rule of 4 square meters per faithful in each mosque for gatherings… but we were not followed, regrets Mohamed Louanoughi, the director general of the Great Mosque of Paris.

So, the best thing is to close, or at least, not to organize any collective prayer with an imam: we want to avoid street prayers at all costs.

"