This Wednesday, the urgent applications judge of the administrative court of Lille rendered his decision in the dispute between the Muslim high school Averroès and the regional council of Hauts-de-France. The community will actually have to pay the school nearly 600,000 euros in subsidies, corresponding to two years of externship package.
“The Hauts-de-France Region takes note of the decision of the urgent applications judge of the administrative court which obliges it to pay the externship packages for the years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 at the Averroès high school in Lille”, declares the institution in a press release. Adding, however, that she was going to appeal to the Council of State.
Same story as last year
It was a “unanimous” vote of the elected members of the regional council, on October 4, which led to the blocking of the subsidy for the second consecutive year. Moreover, the school had already seized the administrative court last year for the same reasons. And the decisions of the administrative court and then of the Council of State had also been in favor of the school.
But the boss of Hauts-de-France, Xavier Bertrand, does not budge, he wants to know precisely where the funds that finance the Averroès high school, reputed to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, come from. To suspend the payment, the region is thus based on the new law to fight against separatism, which must in particular allow control of the financing received by any association.
“The Regional Council will also seize the new Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye”, announces the press release. Not on the financing aspect this time, but on the content of the lessons. The community thus wants to “obtain guarantees” that the contract between the establishment and the State is respected.