September 8, 2002	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Saani29,1423

PARIS, Sept 7: French authorities have given approval to the construction of a mosque in Strasbourg - the seat of the European Parliament, although city fathers say that it will “have to be Republican and French”.

Mrs Keller, the mayor, has given instructions that the total outlay on the mosque should not exceed six million dollars, with the proviso that none of the financing come from outside of France.

The go-ahead for construction had been originally given in May 2000 by Socialist Mayor Roland Ries, but with the arrival in power of a rightwing mayor - Fabienne Keller - a year later, the project was immediately put on hold.

The original mosque, designed by Italian architect Paolo Porthoghesi, was to have cost $17 million dollars, with Strasbourg providing the site on which the mosque was to be built as well as 10 percent of the cost of construction.

The original project had already proved controversial because Mayor Ries had been obliged to make a choice between two projects _ one proposed by an Algerian university professor Ali Bouamama and the other, the project that was finally selected - by a Moroccan national, Abdellah Boussouf.

Mr Ries had hoped all along to reconcile the two projects and come up with a mosque which would incorporate the best features of the proposed Moroccan and Algerian projects.

After being elected mayor last year, Mrs Keller decided to drop the Moroccan design and opted for a hybrid project.

Her efforts, however, at “reconciling” the two projects have met with the same fate as those of her predecessor, and the new design is similar to the one that had been proposed by the Socialist administration of Mr Ries.

The architect is being asked to scale back his plans considerably, with the central prayer room now proposed to be 1,000 square metres instead of 1,500 square metres.

The new structure, moreover, will have neither cultural space nor living quarters. It is also unlikely to have a minaret, although city fathers say they have not yet taken a final decision on the height of the structure.