The city of Nice was pinned by the courts for having made the Lino-Ventura theater available free of charge to a Muslim association on June 15, 2018, for Eid el-Fitr, the end of Ramadan celebration. In a judgment dated December 19, which annuls the municipal decree signed at the time to authorize this loan and that 20 minutes was able to consult, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Marseille considers that the Union of Muslims of the Alpes-Maritimes (Umam) should have been “regarded” as “a religious association”.
As a result, it could not receive any public subsidy, in any form whatsoever, under the law on secularism of 1905 which stipulates that “the Republic does not recognize, pay or subsidize any religion”, recalls the stop.
A controversy erupted the following days on June 15, 2018. The mayor of Nice Christian Estrosi had himself denounced, on Twitter, “the street prayers which are organized at Ariane”. Several hundred people had indeed gathered in the parking lot adjoining the theater for a religious ceremony.
Philippe Vardon denounces “compromises”
At the origin of this procedure, Philippe Vardon, president of the main municipal opposition group and member of the national leadership of Reconquête! welcomed this decision. “This is the second time, after the judgment in 2013 for the undervalued rent of a mosque installed in municipal premises, that justice comes to give me reason in my denunciation of the compromises between the municipality and a certain number of Islamist organizations,” he said in a press conference on Monday.
Umam is a member of the Muslims of France (formerly Union of Islamic Organizations of France), which, according to him, is close to the Muslim Brotherhood movement.
The city of Nice, which had won at first instance before the administrative court of Nice, in February 2021, announced its decision to appeal to the Council of State, considering this decision “questionable and contrary to the legislation in force”.