October 9, 2002	Wednesday	Sha’aban 2, 1423

PARIS: Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister who is also in charge of the country’s religious affairs, says that he’s decided to give the country a new representational organization — the Conseil Francais du Culte Musulman (CFCM) — that should be able henceforth to better represent French Islam in all its diversity.

When the CFCM will be elected later this year, said Sarkozy during a visit to the Grande Mosquee de Paris, “it should bear an authority which will reflect the richness and the diversity of Islam in France.”

Moreover, he noted, the CFCM should allow a better representation of Muslim women.

The decision by Sarkozy to emphasize in his declarations the diversity of French Islam — the country’s second largest religion with some 5 million adherents — comes in the wake of the much-publicised visit to France of Dr Abdullah Al-Turki, head of the Muslim World League.

Until now, French authorities had demonstrated a tendency to support the form of Islam promulgated by the Grande Mosquee de Paris and its rector Dalil Boubakeur.

Sarkozy also announced that although it had been previously envisioned to have all representatives to the CFCM elected by the different organisms that make up Islam in France, he now supported a double system that would see some delegates elected, while others would be appointed. It would bring about a better balance between the several forms of Islam extant in France, he observed.

As for the two-week long visit to France of Dr Al-Turki, and his meeting with Sarkozy, it is being seen by some governmental observers as being responsible for the decisions by the ministry to change his own point of view and propose that the CFCM better represent all forms of Islam in France, including those considered as relatively more radical than the brand of Islam represented by Rector Boubakeur.