During the presentation of his wishes on Thursday evening, Chems-eddine Hafiz denounced a “scandalous and unfounded cabal” which would target him on the halal issue but did not say a word about the detention of the writer Boualem Sansal in Algeria
The man is visibly tested but he does not admit defeat. Presenting his wishes on Thursday, January 23, from the Grand Mosque of Paris, its rector Chems-eddine Hafiz, under fire from recent criticism against the backdrop of the crisis between France and Algeria, publicly confirmed that he would not resign : “With determination, sincerity and serenity, I will continue to preside over the destiny of the Grand Mosque of Paris,” he said to his “habitual detractors and coveters, shadow prosecutors”while counterattacking because “the Grand Mosque of Paris will not give in to a scandalous and unfounded cabal.”
Denouncing a “unprecedented media campaign waged against the institution that I lead, and against everything it represents” with “extremely virulent attacks, totally false, spread by the inconsistency of social networks and the orientation of certain media” sourced, according to him, in the “environments hostile to the appeasement of relations between France and Algeria”the current rector, who was a lawyer by profession, claimed a policy of “transparency”.
“Everything had been made public”
He first addressed the issue of halal certification, following an article published in the daily L’Opinion of January 22 where he is directly implicated for his methods and his management of an agreement with Algeria giving, to the Paris mosque, to collect, against the halal label, a tax on a multitude of food products imported from Europe towards Algeria. Chems-eddine Hafiz mocked these “revelations” because, according to him, “everything was made public, by us, upon the signing of these agreements in December 2022”accessible on the Grand Mosque website. In fact, a tab exists on the site entitled “exclusive Algeria mandate” that you have to know how to find. The signing of this agreement remained discreet at the time.
As for the “commercial company” which actually manages these financial flows resulting from this windfall, it only has, the rector insisted, a “sole shareholder”, “the Society of Habous and Holy Places of Islam association” which is the owner and manager of the Grand Mosque of Paris.
To respond to accusations of fanciful controls of these labeled products, delivered by the thousands of tons, the rector said “field controls, the issuance of certificates and accounting monitoring are solid: everything is traced, controlled, declared.” However, no one understands how a concrete control can be carried out, by three Parisian employees, given the quantities imported and the multitude of products concerned.
Finally, on the use of funds, this same manager guaranteed: “All dividends are used to finance the exercise of Muslim worship, as the statutes of the new commercial company provide”. These sums would be, according to the daily L’Opinion which cites the Grand Mosque of around 2.9 million euros in operating profit in 2024. These are actually not published.
-The rector was finally offended that this mechanism of financing worship was being called into question because “other people had put forward the idea a few years ago of taxing the halal economy to finance worship”. On the contrary, he believes, the funds thus collected by the Grand Mosque of Paris “should be considered a boon for the Muslim faith in France, which has such difficulty financing itself” by qualifying ” fake news” what would be a “hidden financing”.
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“Virtuous bridges between France and Algeria”
As for the accusations relating to the close links between this place of worship built by France in 1922 to honor Muslim soldiers, not only Algerians, who fell during the war of 14-18, this Algerian by birth retorted that this institution has always had a “historical relationship with Algeria” and it was not until the 1980s that “deprived of means”this symbolic place begins “to benefit from annual funding from the Algerian State, in full agreement with the French State.”
The rector notably concluded his plea with this assertion: “No one will be able to ignore the republican commitment of the Grand Mosque of Paris, its attachment to the values of our society, its desire to see our Muslim fellow citizens flourish in France. This is undoubtedly why it is disturbing and why some refuse what it represents and will continue to represent: a symbol of unity. »
Having listed in his speech the results of his multiple religious and cultural actions for the year 2024, the rector thus defined his vision of “role of the Grand Mosque of Paris” who is to work “in favor of the harmonious life of Muslim worship in our country, the citizenship of Muslims in France and the fight against extremism”and its “wish” personnel “to build virtuous bridges between France and Algeria”. The former lawyer then litigating for himself asked this question: “What harm can we see in this intention? What contradiction? None.”
The rhetorician rector, however, carefully avoided addressing the most controversial subjects which nevertheless deeply divide the two countries. On the one hand the affair of the Algerian influencers, several of whom were arrested by the Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau, represented at the Grand Mosque by several eminent persons, including his deputy chief of staff, Louis-Xavier Thirode, personal friend of the rector . And the detention, on the other hand, of Boualem Sansal, writer imprisoned in Algeria for the crime of opinions. Thursday evening the writer was simply ignored by Chems-eddine Hafiz who preferred to praise one of his multiple cultural initiatives, “the literary prize of the Grand Mosque of Paris”.
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