If places of worship will once again be able to organize gatherings from Saturday - under a very low level, according to Emmanuel Macron's indications on Tuesday evening - the faithful of the great mosque of Pantin will have to wait.
This Wednesday morning, the Council of State rejected the summary appeal brought by the federation of Muslims in this city.
This challenged the closure for six months ordered by the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis, in mid-October at the request of the Ministry of the Interior, then confirmed by the administrative court of Montreuil.
VIDEO. Darmanin: "I asked to close the Pantin mosque"
This closure was decided in the wake of the terrorist assassination of Samuel Paty.
Among the grievances against the mosque: the publication of a video calling for mobilization against the teacher a few days before his beheading, the presence of a radical imam within the place of worship, as well as the presence of radicalized faithful, and finally, anti-public school remarks relayed on one of the Facebook accounts of M'hammed Henniche, the head of the mosque.
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The arguments of William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, lawyers of M'hammed Henniche, Monday at the Council of State, have not changed the situation.
These recalled, among other things, that the incriminated imam had been dismissed, and that the anti-Samuel Paty video had been quickly deleted by M'hammed Henniche, moreover depicted as a “republican” religious leader and close to the administrative authorities. and policies.
"A gathering place for individuals belonging to the radical Islamic movement"
But the summary judge of the Council of State considered that "the remarks made by the officials of the great mosque of Pantin and the ideas or theories disseminated within it constitute a provocation, in connection with the risk of committing acts of terrorism, violence, hatred or discrimination and are such as to justify the closure of the place of worship ”.
Regarding the imam of the mosque, the Council of State recalls that he was "trained in a fundamentalist institute in Yemen, that his sermons are broadcast, with the mention of his attachment to the great mosque of Yemen. Pantin, on a website that broadcasts Salafist fatwas of Saudi sheikhs and that he is involved in the radical Islamist movement in Ile-de-France ”.
The mosque is identified by the intelligence services as "a gathering place for individuals belonging to the radical Islamic movement, some of whom do not live in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis and have been involved in projects of terrorist acts
( Editor's note: from the Lagny-sur-Marne mosque, in particular)
”.
Guarantees deemed insufficient
Finally, the summary judge of the Council of State specifies that the mosque may reopen if "measures likely to prevent the repetition of the dysfunctions noted, in particular by the choice of imams authorized to officiate, the adoption of effective control measures of attendance at the mosque and social networks under its responsibility ”will have been set up.
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Monday, in audience, M'hammed Henniche had indicated that he would install a video protection camera system at the entrance to the site.
And assured that the implicated imam had been definitively removed from the Pantin mosque.
Not enough for the judges.
