For “risks of disturbing public order”, Renzo Sulli, the communist mayor of Échirolles, near Grenoble, banned the holding of a conference this Sunday with Ismaïl and Nader Abou Anas, two imams targeted by many accusations of extremism.
“The large number of participants expected at this conference, more than 600 according to the organizers, does not prove to be in line with the reception capacities of the room (…) which has a gauge of 444 people”, indicated the elected official by statement Friday.
According to him, the event “would have led the organizer’s security service to turn back several hundred people at the entrance to the hall” but also to counter-demonstrations near places by “several parties or organizations [qui] voiced their opposition to this rally.
A previous edition already canceled in Avignon
Several elected officials and activists from the National Rally and Reconquest, as well as the Grenoble branch of the right-wing student union UNI, expressed their opposition this week to the holding of this conference, a previous edition of which had already been canceled on January 8 in Avignon for security reasons.
On its Facebook account, the association D’Clic Valence, organizer of the event, had castigated Friday “the agitation and harassment orchestrated by ultra-right militias. According to the mayor of Échirolles, this structure located in Bourg-lès-Valence (Drôme), is known “to be close to fundamentalist Islamist movements”.