Together with some forty imams from the Paris region, the president of this new body, Hassan Chalghoumi, an imam in Drancy, supports “interfaith dialogue, promoting an open Islam and supervising imams”. “He is an extremely courteous man, whose mediatised hugging of Rabbi Serfaty (one of the leaders of the Jewish-Muslim Friendship Association) contributes to the ability to live together,” says Bernard Kanovitch, in charge of relations with Muslims at CRIF. Having come as a “Catholic”, Christine Boutin justified her presence in these terms: “I am deeply convinced that religions are factors of mediation and pacification.”
Richard Prasquier insisted on the need for young people to undertake joint humanitarian tasks, to get to know each other as close individuals rather than as members of communities that are eternally hostile to each other.
On a related issue, the French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM) “firmly condemns” the call to demonstrate in front of the Paris Mosque, organised by the “Sheik Yassine Collective”, which accuses the rector of the mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, a former president of the CFCM, of having expressed “his passion for the Hebrew State” in an interview given to the tourism magazine Svp-Israel.
The Collective also accuses Dalil Boubakeur of having taken part in the CRIF dinner and the enthronement of Chief Rabbi Gilles Bernheim without protesting over statements they had made about the conflict in Gaza. In its communiqué, CFCM’s executive board “firmly condemns such actions which can disturb the free practice of the Islamic faith in France”.
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