Yacine Laoudi is the president of the association of the Muslim cult of Aulnay-sous-Bois (ACMA) which manages the great mosque of this city.
Normally, nearly 3,000 faithful pray in this place of worship!
For the man - also the head doctor of the hospital service - the president must authorize religious gatherings, during his speech scheduled for Tuesday, provided that a maximum number of faithful is established.
And he tackles the difference in treatment between cults by the authorities.
How is the reconfinement going in terms of Muslim worship?
Yacine Laoudi.
It is complicated.
We have already experienced this, during the first confinement.
First of all spiritually speaking, because people need to come together to pray, especially in these dark times.
There is also the increasingly worrying financial question.
The money is used to maintain the premises, to pay the rents in certain cases… However, the donations of the faithful are made at the time of the prayers, especially on Fridays and obviously, during Ramadan.
If that of next year
(Editor's note: which begins in mid-April)
cannot be held because of the third wave, it will be a disaster.
What do you expect from Emmanuel Macron's announcements this Tuesday?
That he authorize religious gatherings, with a gauge of faithful to respect.
In between the two confinements, we were able to organize ourselves.
In Aulnay-sous-Bois, the mosque that I manage can accommodate 2,800 people in normal times.
With sanitary measures, it's 800 people, separated by 1.5 meters.
Ablutions must be done at home, everyone must bring their Koran, that of the mosque is no longer accessible.
Ditto for the prayer rugs.
And the place is disinfected regularly thanks to our volunteers.
Our exemplary nature must influence the government in the direction of a reopening.
My mosque has not been the scene of any major contamination, nor any church, that I know of!
What do you think of the closure of the Pantin mosque, examined this Monday morning at the Council of State?
It is an absurd collective sanction.
If his manager and his imam - whom I do not know - have done something reprehensible: that they be punished according to what the law dictates.
But the faithful
(there are 1,300 in Pantin)
, it is they who clink glasses!
Especially since if religious gatherings are authorized again, this will pose a problem: the hundreds of Pantin's faithful will have to go to other mosques to pray.
And while we must restrict the number of people per place of worship, it is counterproductive.
There is a kind of double penalty here.
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We are not there to compare ourselves, it is difficult for all believers.
But honestly ... if it had been Muslims, even half as many, the police would have come ashore.
For sure.
I have also heard of underground masses… Imagine if we Muslims had done this!
It was the headlines guaranteed.
But no Muslim leader would venture to organize this.
Like what!
We have the feeling of double standards.
Beyond the religious field, there was this same injustice during the first confinement.
People from the suburbs were shot with red balls as soon as there were three people outside, but the picnics in the upscale neighborhoods were less frivolous.
The rules should be the same for everyone.