Race and politics in France :

[Al-khiyal]

Rows cast doubt over French Muslim Council vote

PARIS, May 3, 2008: The Paris Grand Mosque announced on Saturday it would boycott elections to France's Muslim Council, throwing into doubt the future of the body President Nicolas Sarkozy created to represent the country's second-largest faith.

Dalil Boubakeur, the Grand Mosque rector who has headed the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) since 2003, said the June 8 poll would be unfair since delegates allowed to vote would be chosen according to the prayer space in their mosques.

"This is not the way to organise Islam in France," said Boubakeur, who said the voting system ensured the Grand Mosque's national network of about 100 mosques would end up far behind other networks that have been building many new mosques.

A statement by the Mosque's national network announcing the boycott called the system an "absurd electoral mechanism."

Behind the poll dispute was a struggle for influence in the 5-million-strong community, Europe's largest Muslim minority, between the Algerian-backed Grand Mosque network and a Moroccan-backed movement keen to gain control of the CFCM.

As interior minister before becoming president last year, Sarkozy helped launch the CFCM in 2003 as a national body to represent Islam, now France's largest faith after Catholicism.

Before polls in 2003 and 2005, he imposed Boubakeur as head of the CFCM regardless of the result. The Grand Mosque network accounts for 15 percent of prayer space in France but claims it is the country's oldest and best established Islamic group.

The current interior minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, has consulted Algiers and Rabat, which both take an active interest in Muslim politics in France, but has not pressured CFCM members to back Boubakeur.

Chems-eddine Hafiz, a senior Grand Mosque official, made it clear that ceding CFCM leadership was unacceptable. "We can't be in the CFCM without having the presidency," he told journalists.

The Union of French Muslim Organisations, a larger rival group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, said the boycott would harm the CFCM. "The UOIF expresses its sadness at this decision by an important component of French Islam," it said.

While some Mosque officials hoped Sarkozy would step in to ensure Boubakeur's reelection and save the CFCM from collapse, analysts doubted the president would side with him once again.

"I don't have the impression the government wants to get involved to support him," said sociologist Franck Fregosi, an expert on French Islam.

The Grand Mosque network, based mostly on older city mosques frequented by Algerians, has seen other groups grow by opening large mosques in suburbs and rural areas where they have far more prayer space and therefore more delegates in the election.

The rival Rally of French Muslims (RMF), a new group with strong support from Rabat, looks well-placed to win the June 8 vote thanks to its far larger network among Moroccan immigrants.

[Al-khiyal]

Un an après son élection,
Nicolas Sarkozy reste confronté aux blocages algéro-français

Lundi 5 Mai 2008 -- Elu triomphalement le 6 mai 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy entame aujourd'hui sa deuxième année en tant que président dans un contexte difficile. En France, les Français sont mécontents de son action. Ils reprochent à leur président de ne pas avoir tenu ses promesses électorales sur le pouvoir d'achat et d'avoir pendant longtemps exposé sa vie privée dans les médias au lieu de s'occuper de leurs problèmes. Dans les sondages, Nicolas Sarkozy est depuis plusieurs semaines en chute libre.

A l'étranger, Nicolas Sarkozy ne s'en sort pas mieux. Dans le monde arabe, particulièrement. La première année de présidence Sarkozy a provoqué un profond sentiment de déception. Paris a perdu au moins une partie de son prestige auprès des dirigeants et des populations. Les reproches formulés à l'encontre du nouveau locataire de l'Elysée sont nombreux : rapprochement avec l'administration Bush, soutien inconditionnel à Israël, nomination de Bernard Kouchner au Quai d'Orsay…

Au Maghreb, zone d'influence traditionnelle de la France, les premiers pas de Nicolas Sarkozy ont déjà provoqué un profond malaise avec l'Algérie. M. Sarkozy a en effet répondu avec beaucoup de brutalité aux attentes algériennes concernant la question de repentance. Les Algériens reprochent également au président Sarkozy les positions pro-marocaines de son pays dans le dossier du Sahara occidental dans un contexte international où beaucoup de pays ont fait évoluer leur position sur la question : l'Afrique du Sud, plus grand pays du continent noir, a reconnu le Sahara occidental ; les pays scandinaves se sont rapprochés de la position défendue par l'Algérie ; de nombreux pays européens, à l'image de l'Espagne, ont pris leurs distances avec Rabat… En dépit de l'effritement de la position française en Europe, Paris continue d'apporter un soutien inconditionnel à Rabat. Plus récemment, la volonté de Nicolas Sarkozy d'installer le siège de la future Union pour la Méditerranée à Rabat a fini par agacer définitivement les Algériens.

Ces deux dossiers empêchent les relations algéro-françaises d'effectuer un saut qualitatif. Les Algériens attendent désormais que la France se range du côté du droit international dans le dossier du Sahara occidental. Ils attendent également du président français un traitement à la hauteur du statut de leurs ambitions dans la région : celle d'être la seule et unique puissance.

[Al-khiyal]

Rows cast doubt over French Muslim Council vote

Le Maroc tente de ravir le Conseil du culte musulman à l’Algérie :
Dalil Boubekeur en mauvaise position

Mardi 13 Mai 2008 -- Les élections pour le contrôle du Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM), prévues le 8 juin, risquent d’être fatales pour l’Algérie. Son président, l’Algérien Dalil Boubakeur, au nom de la Fédération nationale de la Grande Mosquée de Paris (FNGMP), vient d’annoncer qu’il ne participera pas au scrutin. L’annonce en elle-même n’est pas une grande surprise. En effet, ce n’est pas la première fois que le président du CFCM affirme son intention de se désister. Lors de la dernière élection, le recteur de la mosquée de Paris a su se jouer de ses adversaires, notamment les Marocains, qui tentaient par tous les moyens, y compris financiers, de déloger le président Dalil Boubekeur.

La composition du CFCM dont les membres sont élus démocratiquement, tient du miracle. Trop de contradictions internes traversent cette instance reconnue par le gouvernement français comme le seul partenaire de dialogue. C’est un conseil hétéroclite, dont l’un des principaux mérites est d’inclure en son sein l’Union des organisations islamiques de France (UOIF), la branche «fondamentaliste» du CFCM, le Rassemblement des musulmans de France (RMF), téléguidé par le Maroc, et le Comité de coordination des musulmans turcs de France (CCMTF).

Lors de la dernière élection, c’est la Grande Mosquée de Paris de Dalil Boubakeur (son père en fut le recteur avant lui) qui a obtenu le suffrage des autres composantes. Or, cette fois-ci, le jeu semble se refermer sur l’actuel président du CFCM puisque le RMF conteste cette prééminence. Le Rassemblement des musulmans de France est arrivé premier lors du précédent scrutin. Pour contester le système de désignation, le RMF fait valoir le nombre de ses délégués – les plus nombreux – participant au vote pour justifier ses vues sur la présidence.

La Grande Mosquée de Paris critique pour sa part les critères établissant la qualité de délégué. Ceux en vigueur, les plus neutres qui aient été trouvés, sont les suivants : 10 délégués pour 1000 m2 de surface de prière. Le recteur de la mosquée de Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, souhaiterait que d’autres conditions soient prises en compte, comme par exemple, la présence d’imams formés. Si la réalité politique accorde une avance à l’Algérie sur le Maroc, il est surtout question de la rivalité qui existe entre ces deux pays.

Et l’Algérie dans ce cas de figure doit peser de tout son poids politique et diplomatique pour étouffer dans l’œuf toute remise en cause de la hiérarchie établie par le gouvernement français et principalement par l’ancien ministre de l’Intérieur aujourd’hui président de la République française, Nicolas Sarkozy. Le Maroc tente tout pour ravir à Dalil Boubakeur le poste de président du Conseil français du culte musulman. A un peu plus d’un mois du renouvellement de la présidence, l’Algérie et le Maroc se disputent âprement le poste et l’ont fait savoir à une délégation ministérielle française qui s’est rendue récemment dans les deux pays.

La bataille ferait rage aussi dans les mosquées de France qui votent actuellement pour désigner leurs délégués pour le renouvellement. Les accords de 2002 fixent le nombre de délégués en fonction des espaces des mosquées.

[Al-khiyal]

Rachida Dati ou l’étoile pâlie

Mardi 3 Juin 2008 -- Elle a été la star des débuts du gouvernement nommé par Nicolas Sarkozy il y a un an. De mère algérienne et de père marocain, Rachida Dati, la petite magistrate, porte parole de la campagne du candidat Sarkozy, était nommée Ministre de la Justice. Tout un symbole. Le parcours d’une beurette jusqu’aux plus hautes sphères de la République. Elle collectionnait les couvertures de magazines et faisait vendre. Paris Match lui consacrait une Couverture particulièrement glamour, habillée par un grand couturier. Rachida Dati ou un mélange de top modèle et d’élève modèle dans la galaxie Sarkozy.

Et puis les premiers ennuis ont commencé, avec le départ de plusieurs membres de son cabinet ministériel. Comme le signal d’alarme d’un malaise auprès de sa garde rapprochée. Puis le style cassant est devenu quotidien pour faire passer des réformes impopulaires. La réforme de la carte judiciaire, l’organisation des tribunaux, a été menée sans grande concertation et les élus de droite à mots couverts ont commencé de se plaindre d’elle auprès des journalistes et des autres ministres.

Rachida Dati aura eu également à encaisser le divorce du président avec Cécilia qui la considérait «comme sa sœur». L’arrivée de Carla Bruni lui aura empêché d’avoir le même accès auprès d’un Nicolas Sarkzoy qui a continué de la soutenir, symbole de «l’ouverture à la diversité» de son gouvernement. Mais le mal était fait.

Jugée trop fragile, la ministre de la Justice aura été empêchée de défendre un texte primordial sur la réforme des institutions. Et c’est le Premier ministre François Fillon qui l’a remplacée. Depuis quelques jours, à la suite d’un verdict prononçant le divorce d’une femme en raison de sa non virginité, une tempête médiatique a manqué de l’emporter, incapable de saisir l’importance de l’enjeu, elle a réagi à contre-temps.

Et les journaux ont commencé de faire paraître les premiers articles très négatifs sur elle. Un peu comme si le charme était rompu entre la ministre de la Justice et ceux qui l’avaient portée au pinacle. Même le président de la République qui reçoit chaque jeudi sept ministre proches de lui pour travailler en dehors de tout cadre formel a choisi de se passer d’elle. Rachida Dati n’a plus qu’à se concentrer sur le quotidien du ministère en attendant de retrouver l’éclat d’une étoile qui a aujourd’hui pâli.

[Al-khiyal]

Rise of Rachida Dati:
The minister, the 'virgin bride' and the row that's dividing a nation

June 4, 2008 -- Two decades ago Rachida Dati, a French daughter of north African immigrants, got married to a man that she barely knew. It was not quite an arranged marriage. It was a marriage "to please her family". She immediately regretted her decision. She persuaded her Algerian husband to agree to an instant annulment.

Rachida Dati was in her early twenties at the time and making her way as a young lawyer and businesswoman in Paris. Through hard work, as a law student and by taking menial jobs, she had already fought her way clear of her impoverished, immigrant family of 11 brothers and sisters just north of Lyons.

Two decades later, Mme Dati is France's first senior minister of north African origin. She is a protégée of President Nicolas Sarkozy. She has been catapulted without previous experience – and her enemies insist without any political skills – into one of the most senior and potentially explosive jobs in French government. As Justice Minister, she has already made several mistakes and many enemies, not least among her own political "allies". She is resented especially by several experienced, male, white, centre-right politicians who think that they have a superior claim to her plum job.

President Sarkozy calls her a "symbol" of his attempts to break down racial and social and gender barriers in France. As a symbol, he has told her several times, she has "no right to fail".

Mme Dati, 43, now finds herself at the centre of a dangerous but, in many ways, foolish, national controversy. By one of the great ironies beloved of novelists and filmmakers, the controversy turns on an annulled marriage between two young French people of north African origin.

M. X, an engineer in his 30s, and recent convert to a strict reading of the Qur'an, married Mlle Y, a nursing student in her 20s. Before they were married, she promised him that she was a virgin. On their marriage night, M. X stormed out of their bedroom to protest to the wedding party – still in progress – that his wife had lied to him. She was not a virgin.

Under Article 180 of the French civil code, a marriage partner can demand an annulment if his or her spouse fails to fulfil an "essential" part of their pre-wedding agreement.

The court's decision was made public late last week. It was made clear that the crucial point was not the bride's lack of virginity but her lack of truthfulness. She had misled her partner. "Married life began with a lie, which is contrary to the reciprocal confidence between the married parties," the court ruled.

There followed an explosion of outrage and political posturing – partly understandable but partly exaggerated and based on deliberate, or lazy, misrepresentation of the facts of the case.

The Lille court, it was alleged, had decided that virginity was an "essential quality" in a bride. (No it hadn't). In a country rooted in secular principles, this was a dangerous slide towards "sharia law" (No it wasn't).

Fadela Amara, the minister for France's troubled multi-racial suburbs, a courageous campaigner against sexism in immigrant communities, said the court ruling was a "fatwa against the emancipation of women". Dounia Bouzar, an anthropologist and the author of books on Islam in Europe, said: "It's a victory for fundamentalists and a victory for those who look at Islam as an archaic religion that treats women badly... I'm sure the judge wanted to be respectful to Islam. Instead, the decision was respectful to fundamentalists."

The ruling can be read that way. Fundamentalist Islam does not demand virgin bridegrooms, only virgin brides. The judgement is also, however, a fairly logical application of France's existing marriage law. Several devout Catholic spouses have won similar annulments on the grounds that their partner had lied to them and concealed a previous divorce. Devout Catholics have a right, under French law, to demand undivorced spouses. That does not mean that French courts disapprove of divorce.

Left-of-centre politicians were outraged by the judgment. Centre-right politicians were oddly divided. Some seemed unsure whether to support the court ruling because they approved of virginity or to oppose it because they disapproved of Islam and north Africans. The veteran feminist campaigner, Elisabeth Badinter, injected a welcome note of common sense. The real, practical problem with the judgment, she said, was that it would boost an existing, disgusting industry in the "re-creation" of virgin hymens among young French women of north African origin.....

[Al-khiyal]

Into this wasp's nest of sincerity, confusion and deliberate bad faith, Mme Dati innocently reached her hand. No, she said, she saw no reason why the Government should appeal against the Lille judgment. "The annulment of a marriage is a way of separating rapidly – a way of protecting someone who wishes to be free of a marriage," she said.

"I think that this young woman, for her own part, also wanted to be separated from her husband as soon as possible.

"The justice system is there to protect the weak and the modest when they are in difficulty."

No one has asked Mme Dati about her own annulled marriage. No one in the French press has tried to make a connection between the two episodes 20 years apart. It is telling, however, that Mme Dati's sympathies were with the young woman. Remembering her own narrow escape from a loveless marriage, she had perhaps, thought that the young woman was fortunate to have escaped from life with a narrow-minded, religious and sexual bigot.

Politically, however, Mme Dati's reply was a catastrophe. Everyone from the far left to Marine Le Pen on the far right piled in to accuse her of insensitivity, of lack of understanding of France's secular tradition and – implicitly – of being soft on Islam.

Finally, yesterday Mme Dati was forced to retreat. The justice ministry acknowledged that the Lille ruling had, "provoked a heated social debate". In the circumstances, it said, "the ruling could be said to have wider significance than the relationship between two individuals. It touched all citizens of our country and especially women."

The justice ministry has therefore asked the local public prosecutor to appeal against the judgment – and to try to restore the marriage of two young people who no longer want to be married. The episode is, therefore, officially over, until the appeal hearing is heard. But has Mme Dati been fatally wounded? Has the woman who "cannot afford to fail" finally exhausted the patience of President Sarkozy?

This is not Mme Dati's first gaffe – if gaffe it truly was. There is no argument about her energy or her intelligence. From the first days of her appointment, 13 months ago, there have been deep doubts about her political skills. There has been a procession of departures from her private office. She has managed to anger senior judges and magistrates throughout France by bulldozing through plans to reduce the country's generous thickets of local courts.

There was scarcely concealed glee in some parts of her own centre-right camp when two of her brothers were tried for drug dealing. In the early months of her tenure, both President Sarkozy and anti-racist groups dismissed the criticism as exaggerated: the inevitable price of his attempt to open up the French political system to people of African and Arab background for the first time.

SOS-Racisme said Mme Dati was "paying the price for being the first person from a Maghreb immigrant background to reach such a high government position". The International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) said she was the "victim of an unfair campaign because of the sound of her surname". No such anti-racism spokesmen have stepped forward to defend her this time.

And President Sarkozy? Mme Dati was his protégée and adviser at the interior ministry. He parachuted her into the justice ministry, one of the top half dozen jobs in French government. Rachida Dati was, however, also a close friend of the second Mme Sarkozy, now departed. Since the installation of a new empress in the Elysée Palace, Mme Dati's relationship with the President appears to have weakened.

She protested – in tears, according to Le Monde – when she was excluded last month from an inner-cabinet of ministers close to M. Sarkozy who were invited to a special, informal strategy session at the Elysée Palace. (The Prime Minister, François Fillon, was also excluded).

According to Le Monde, President Sarkozy reassured her that her position close to the throne was safe. He repeated his mantra. She was a "symbol for all the children of France". She could not fail and – more importantly – President Sarkozy could not afford her to fail.

That was, however, before the row exploded about the Lille court's judgment.

Here, then, is a tale of virginity, religion, race, lies and politics. The virginity is partly Mme Dati's political virginity. The lies are not just those told by the bride in the Lille court case.

In any European country the formula would be an awkward one. In France, so sensitive about its secular tradition, so insensitive for so long about its treatment of the children of immigrants, the formula is explosive.

President Sarkozy has made many mistakes since he came to office but he deserves great credit for his attempt to open up French public life, socially and racially. Mme Dati may not have been a perfect choice but there were no more experienced candidates. No previous government, of right or left, had felt it necessary to include, at senior level, politicians of north African origin.

In all the anguished, or fake-anguished debate about the Lille judgment, no commentator or politician has pointed out how difficult this episode must have been for a woman with Mme Dati's extraordinary life-story.

And what of M. X and Mlle Y? If the government's appeal succeeds, their marriage will be restored. They will become M. and Mme X. They can – and will – however seek a quickie divorce, without any reference to virginity, Islam or politics.

[Al-khiyal]

Sarkozy backs Dati in Muslim marriage row

PARIS, June 4, 2008 -- President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday flew to the support of France's Muslim-born justice minister, Rachida Dati, in the firing line in a bitter row over a Muslim marriage annulment.

"The president said very clearly of Rachida Dati that she is the victim of a lynching campaign that is meaningless, baseless," government spokesman Yves Yego said after the weekly cabinet meeting.

Dati has drawn furious protests from women's rights group, the opposition and parts of her own camp for refusing to condemn a marriage annulment granted to a Muslim couple after the bride admitted she had lied about being a virgin.

The 42-year-old bowed to the public uproar on Monday by ordering an appeal but has continued to insist the ruling was legally sound, based on the breach of trust between the pair and not the issue of virginity itself.

In a stormy parliament session Tuesday Dati, who herself comes from a Muslim family, warned the ruling should not be used to stigmatise France's five-million-strong Muslim population.

She launched a stinging attack on the integration policies of previous left-wing governments, saying they had failed young Muslim women, drawing angry cries of "Resign, Resign!" from the assembly.

Jego said Sarkozy had "expressed his satisfaction with the justice minister's work. He hailed her courage and her efforts to modernise the judiciary."

"This campaign must end as quickly as possible... it is based on nothing except a will to harm someone who is doing their job well and who represents a sensibility that we need in government."

A year ago Dati, the second of 12 children born to a Moroccan labourer and an illiterate Algerian mother, was hailed as the new face of France as the first politician of north African origin named to a top government post.

But her problems have piled up in recent months.

A dozen members of Dati's cabinet have resigned in protest at her management style, and she has been accused of ramming through a reform closing dozens of rural courtrooms, alienating the judiciary and lawmakers in her own party.

Critics - including in her own camp - have complained that she is out of her depth in the role of justice minister and commentators note she appears to have been excluded from Sarkozy's inner circle of half a dozen ministers, raising questions over her political future.

Yet others have bristled at her flamboyant dress style and media-friendly personality, with Socialist deputy Andre Vallini accusing her of "walking into prisons as if she was walking up the red carpet at Cannes."