The President of the Republic came to put the insignia of officer of the Legion of Honor to the Rector Chems-Eddine Hafiz on Wednesday. An opportunity to recall its attempt to reorganize Islam in France and to do the after-sales service of the separatism law, voted a year ago.
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The woman hesitates and then sing a Youyou, this cry of joy so particular to the celebrations of North Africa. Very quickly, others present follow suit, and the sound resonates in the interior courtyard which adjoins the prayer hall of the Great Mosque of Paris. The space of a few seconds, the festive Maghreb made in a solemn moment.
On Wednesday, October 19, where an almost summer sun goes through the interstices of the removable roof placed on the splendid interior courtyard of the Great Mosque of Paris, Emmanuel Macron came to put the insignia of the LEGION OF HONOR to honor Chems-Eddine Hafiz, his rector. The date is not due to chance: it has been a hundred years that the first stone of the sublime building with oriental and Moorish inspirations enthroned in the middle of the 5th e arrondissement of the capital has been laid.
The celebration therefore began with a visit by the Head of State, flanked by his Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, and former President Nicolas Sarkozy, of an exhibition on the history of the Large mosque. Photos, texts and historical objects under the eyes, Emmanuel Macron was explained by Mr. Hafiz the history of the place, first built in thanks to the Muslims of the enlisted colonies, sometimes for force, to serve France during the first World War.
The visit is also followed by a wreath laying in their memory and the speech that the President of the Republic will pronounce a few minutes later is, at least for his first part, borrowed from the historical importance of the ‘event. “On this fall 1922 day, our nation was affirmed in the eyes of the world that one could be French and Muslim,” started Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.
“Our enemies are the same”
A hundred years since laid the first stone, a little less since the inauguration, and as many years of a complex relationship enamelled with misunderstandings between the State and French Islam. In addition to the historic tribute to the building and the personal one to Mr. Hafiz, the day at the Great Mosque was thus an opportunity for the President of the Republic to recall his attempts to organize as much as possible Islam in France. All in a context where almost every week emerges a controversy over the manifestations of real or supposed radical Islam.
It was also a question of doing the after-sales service of the separatism law, adopted a year ago, and the vision of the government of secularism, at the time of questions about the multiplication of signs Muslim religious at school. The speech delivered before a parterre of the main dignitaries of all the confessions thus made an echo to that of the walls of October 2020 on “separatisms”.
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