French President Emmanuel Macron announces the end of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), an institution in place since 2003, which is a body for dialogue between the State and the Muslim faith.
Indeed, the French Head of State, declared this Thursday, February 16, 2023 “to have decided” to put an end to this body, while he received on Thursday the members of the Forum de l’islam de France (Forif), new discussion space.
“Previous instances had limitations that I have already had the opportunity to name. There was a dialogue that existed, there were real advances. I don’t want to underestimate what had been done, for example, with the CFCM,” declared the Head of State. “But the State very often also discussed with other States, within the framework of a form of remanence, not simply diplomatic but which also embarked on a whole story from which it was necessary to gradually get out”, he continued.
In December 2021, the executive decided to no longer consider him as an interlocutor and preferred Forif, a body composed of actors in the field appointed by the prefects, which met in plenary session on Thursday, after a year of existence, to deliver his first works. Yet considered as a historical interlocutor of the public authorities from 2003, the CFCM, composed of federations attached to the countries of origin (Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, etc.), has experienced strong internal disputes in recent years.
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After several months of blocking, the CFCM, amputated by several federations of mosques having left it, decided at the beginning of January to continue its existence. It holds a general meeting on Sunday, with the agenda of a possible modification of its statutes with an increased representation of the departments and a reduction in the weight of the federations constituting it.
What about the presidents of the CFCM?
Asked by the press about the words of the Head of State, the interim co-president of the French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM), Ibrahim Alci, invited to the meeting at the Élysée Palace, replied: “A CFCM is not don’t dissolve like that. The board of directors “will meet” and “if it wants to dissolve, it will dissolve”.
Asked whether the CFCM could change its name, he answered evasively, saying that the board of directors could put an end to the organization. Also evoking the possibility of a “rebirth of the CFCM, in a different way, via another association, another organization, without giving more details.
According to him, “Forif is not a replacement for CFCM”. As for the other co-president of the CFCM, Mohammed Moussaoui, contacted by AFP, could not be reached.
