PARIS - French Muslims re-elected Dalil Boubakeur, the moderate rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, as leader of their national council on Sunday, confirming the ascendancy of traditional Islamic groups in recent elections. Boubakeur, a medical doctor born in Algeria, won easy re-election as president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) representing Franceâs 5 million seething Muslims, the largest Islamic minority in Europe.
Jacques Chiracâs office said the French president had personally called Boubakeur to congratulate him, and hailed the CFCM election for uniting Islamâs different strands âin a spirit of dialogue and more effective actionâ.
Boubakeur noted the CFCM had often been criticised as inactive in its first two years but said his new executive bureau stood for âcontinuity, balance and a desire for efficiency.â
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He said the CFCM had succeeded in rallying groups representing French Muslims -- whose origins lie in 62 countries, mainly Morocco, Algeria and Turkey -- to work together for the first time for the good of their fellow believers.
The activist Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF), which slipped badly in the CFCMâs national election last Sunday, threatened to boycott the voting for the executive bureau but finally attended and accepted the post of second vice president. The National Federation of French Muslims (FNMF) backed by Morocco swept the CFCMâs vote last Sunday, taking 19 of 43 seats on the administrative council. It took the post of first vice president on the executive bureau headed by Boubakeur.
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Boubakeurâs Algerian-backed GMP group increased its seats to 10 from six in the CFCMâs first election two years ago. That made it equal with the UOIF which won 13 seats two years ago.
Boubakeurâs expected re-election was almost overshadowed by the UOIFâs threat to boycott the vote in protest against what it said was overt interference by Morocco and Algeria to have French Muslims with roots in those countries vote for their candidates. The UOIF, which is close to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and stresses the fact it has no links to any Islamic countries, agreed to attend only after Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy met its leaders on Saturday.
Comments by Sarkozy before the vote to the effect that it was natural for French Muslims to keep some ties to their countries of origin sparked another protest by the UOIF. âThe UOIF pledges to the Muslim community that it will do its best to free the CFCM from outside guardianship or interference and to defend the interests of Islam in France,â it said in a communique issued overnight.
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Franck Fregosi, an Islam expert at Robert Schuman University in Strasbourg, said the CFCM elections showed the continuity of outside influence on French Muslims. âFrench Islam is having a hard time freeing itself from this logic of subjection to ethnic or national interests,â he told the daily Le Monde. âFrench Muslims are still a long way off from taking their destiny into their own hands and creating an Islam free of outside guardianship.â
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