PARIS, Jan 5: Dounia Bouzar - one of two woman members of the French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM) - has stepped down, complaining that the body is failing to tackle the problems of the country's estimated five million-strong community.

"For two years now I have been waiting for discussions to begin, but we never talked about anything. I don't see what qualified people like me are there for," Dounia Bouzar said on Wednesday - two days after sending in a letter of resignation.

"All they talk about is procedures, who gets what positions, and the modalities of the elections which will take place in June," she said. "I do not see why I should continue with a mere walk-on part."

An anthropologist who has written widely on the problems of Muslim integration, Ms Bouzar was appointed to the CFCM's 17-member governing bureau shortly after it was created two years ago as the country's first-ever officially recognized Muslim body.

Dounia Bouzar said the CFCM was dominated by men born outside France overly influenced by links with their countries of origin, and that the younger generations of French-born Muslims were un represented.

"My great regret is that the CFCM did not seize the extraordinary opportunity we had two years ago, when all the conditions were right for creating a new sense of Muslim religious consciousness, adapted to French secularism," she said.

"Young Muslims born in France cannot turn to foreign countries to find an answer to the key question - what does it mean to be a Muslim in a secular country - because none of those countries is secular. It was up to the CFCM to start the debate," she said.

The CFCM was established in 2002 at the initiative of former interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who felt the government should have a formal point of contact with the growing Muslim population. -AFP