Ban Arabic sermons say left wingers

THE co-founder of SOS Racisme and national secretary for the Socialist Party has said that sermons in mosques should be preached in French.

Julien Dray said it was necessary to be “very vigilant” for certain preachers and tackle “Salafist cores” in France.

“In Judaism, the sermons are in French and the prayers are in Hebrew. The sermons, that it where the message is delivered, and it must be done in French,” he said.

The leader of the Parti Radical de Gauche, Jean-Michel Baylet, has also asked that “all religious groups practising in France be in the French language”.

The wish to ban Arabic sermons already has traction among right-wing politicians.

The head of the Front National, Marine Le Pen put forward the suggestion a year ago, followed by several Républicains MPs.

However the idea was being called for even as far back as 2011 UMP MP François Copé.

At the time he was put down by the then Minister of the Interior Claude Guéant who said that such a manoeuvre was “constitutionally impossible”.

The rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, said at the time: “Liturgies in languages other than French, considered as an integral part of religious worship, cannot suffer interference from the State as a result of the law of 1905”.

The 1905 sets the modern legal basis for the relations between religious, public and private spheres in France and the concept known as laïcité.

Photo: The Great Mosque of Paris by flickr/Stephane Martin