“It’s a slip of the tongue. I didn’t graduate from the ENA or the Sorbonne.”
Mahjoub Mahjoubi's defense is ready.
Accused of having held “
anti-France
”
sermons
, the 52-year-old imam, who officiates in Bagnols-sur-Cèze in Gard, is under the yoke of a preliminary investigation for advocating terrorism, opened by the prosecution from Nîmes, we learned this Monday, February 19.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Sunday evening that he was waiting for
“his expulsion from the territory”,
after a report from the prefect of Gard to the public prosecutor.
“No call to hatred will go unanswered
,” added the Beauvau tenant in a publication on X.
In a short extract broadcast and widely relayed on social networks, we can see the imam holding a sermon, facing the camera.
He describes the
“tricolor”
flag as a
“satanic flag”
which has
“no value with Allah”
.
“We will no longer have all these tricolor flags which plague us, which give us headaches
,” he declared.
It does not specify that it is the French flag.
“Contempt in the French language”
Mahjoub Mahjoubi, born in Tunis, settled in France since 1986, father of children born and educated in France, and married to a woman of French nationality, pleads through his lawyer a
“mistake in the French language”
.
To our colleagues at
Midi Libre
, he assures us that this sentence is a
“slip of the tongue”
.
“I understand that it could have been shocking.
(...) Believe me, there was never any question in my remarks, neither remotely nor directly, of saying that the French flag is satanic.
I was talking about the Muslim world and football (...) I am not a thug.
“It’s a situation that can shatter a man’s life and destroy a household
. ”
Questioned by
Le Figaro
, his advisor, Master Samir Hamroun, advises
“it is imperative to listen to the sermon in its entirety”
, which would constitute a
“criticism against nationalism, more particularly applied by certain young people of North African origin who wage “war” on each other. in football stadiums, particularly under the cover of defending a flag
,” he assures.
It is a sermon
"on the division of Muslims of all nationalities (...) He had no intention of attacking the French flag and its values for which he has deep attachment",
according to the lawyer , deploring that one could
“confuse (his client) with the worst extremists that exist”.
“Do you accept that your son’s mother is a fornicator?”
What did the imam really say?
And above all, is it customary to make controversial comments?
In his entire sermon lasting 40 minutes - first delivered in Arabic, then translated into French - which
Le Figaro
found, Mahjoub Mahjoubi evokes in a long tirade the
"small signs of the end of times"
, namely
"the "beautification and decoration of mosques"
, money (
"before, little money was enough for a family to live, even in this country. Today, our own children who are 12, 13, 15 years old talk to you about pairs of sneakers for 300 euros, tracksuits for 300 euros"
), alcohol (
"people drink without any restraint. A few years ago people who drank hid."
) and
"fornication"
(
"a lot of our young Muslims bring the girlfriend home. Do you accept that your son's mother will later be a fornicator?
"
He continues by warning against a prophecy announcing the coming of the
"antichrist"
, and calls to defend himself against it to
"preserve the blood and unity of Muslims",
because
"division weakens us"
, he says. .
When this prophecy comes true, Al-Mahdi, identified as a descendant of the prophet of Islam in the Sunni religion, will precede the antichrist to bring together all pious Muslims, according to the imam.
So, Al-Mahdi will
“self-proclaim and all governors in all governances will fall.
We will no longer have all these tricolor flags which gangrene us and which give us headaches"
, notably in football stadiums,
"where we hit the Muslim on the head",
he assures, imitating cries of support.
“(Flags) have no value with Allah.
The only value they have is satanic value.”
According to Mahjoub Mahjoubi, these flags were created to divide Muslims among themselves.
And to affirm that Al-Mahdi will go towards Syria.
“The events in Syria over the past 10 years are not for nothing.
It’s preparation, it’s the pre-scenario
,” he warns.
Criticism of Israel and the media
Still in his sermon, he is also critical of Israel, indicating
that “they want to destroy”
the ancient mosque of Jerusalem, to
“create the great State of Israel”
.
This is
“what they are doing in Gaza, to enlarge and extend what they want
,” he claims.
At the end of the sermon, he also attacks the media:
“Throw away the newspapers where there are only lies in them.
These magazines or information have no value.
Learn what the Messenger of Allah informed us
.
On his Facebook account, the imam, member of the Rhone Gard Muslims association, shares old sermons, but also publications.
One of them, showing an image of Bashar al-Assad, describes the Syrian president as a
“thug”
, the
“face of Satan”
who
“killed a third of his people”
.
He jokes about the fact that Bashar al-Assad
“deplores what is happening”
in Gaza.
In another accompanied by a photograph of a football stadium, where one can see supporters of a team carrying a banner written in Arabic, the imam writes:
"God's victory will not be achieved with slogans, false cheers, or forbidden musical evenings, but with what God has ordained in a noble verse
.
In the sights of the authorities
This is not the first time that the imam of Gard has been targeted by the authorities.
As he himself states in
Midi Libre
:
“The intelligence services have scrutinized my life.
They have it from A to
Z.
Thus, according to information from Le
Parisien
and BFMTV, the religious has already been the subject of at least one report from the department prefecture.
The institution would have informed the Nîmes public prosecutor's office that the imam was sentenced in 2015 to a ban on managing a business until June 2030. However, he would occupy the position of manager of a building works company, whose presidency would be entrusted to his wife, according to the prefecture cited by our colleagues.
An administrative control following the report was ordered on November 8 in his mosque - the next day, a Koranic school welcoming young people for academic support and administered by Mahjoub Mahjoubi was closed, for suspicion of separatist speeches.
The remarks of the imam of Gard were in any case severely denounced by certain representatives of the Muslim faith.
“This Islam has never existed, Islam recognizes the diversity of religions, of nations
,” denounced Tareq Oubrou, grand imam of the Bordeaux mosque.
The vice-president of the French Council of Muslim Faith Abdallah Zekri estimated that Mahjoub Mahjoubi had crossed a
“red line”
.
“Based on that, I cannot condone what he said.”