French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Wednesday that the end of " detached imams ", that is to say sent by other countries, announced the day before by the President of the Republic, was scheduled for 2024.
" We are working on the end of the imams posted in 2024, " said Mr. Castaner on France Inter radio because " those who are there and who arrive have a three-year residence permit ." " I have indicated to foreign countries which are the countries of origin - Morocco, Turkey and Algeria - that the deadline is 2024, " he insisted.
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The Minister of the Interior also said that the number of chanters received each year during Ramadan will be lowered " from the next Ramadan " in April.
Emmanuel Macron announced these measures on Tuesday during a trip to eastern France devoted to the fight against “ Islamist separatism ”. The president also announced a tightened control of the foreign financings of the places of worship, to be able to block suspicious projects.
It also decided to stop, as of the next school year, a system of optional courses in foreign languages given by teachers appointed by the governments of other countries, deploring the lack of control over these lessons.
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These lessons, called “ Elco ”, concern nine countries (Algeria, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey) and “ 80,000 students ” per year. " We cannot teach things that are clearly not compatible either with the laws of the Republic or with History as we see it, " said Macron to justify the removal of this device.
Elco lessons will be replaced by another device better controlled by the National Education, after negotiations with the countries concerned. Discussions on this subject have also existed since 2016.
According to Mr. Macron, France has reached an agreement on this point " with all these countries, except Turkey at this stage ". He wanted to " salute the exemplary work " with the king of Morocco or the Algerian president on " a capacity to build solutions in educational and religious matters ".
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