The French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM), former body for dialogue between the executive and Muslims in France, has implemented new governance aimed at better representing actors on the ground, we learned this Monday from the ‘association. A new electoral regulation, provided for by the statutes voted in March 2023, was adopted on Saturday to set up departmental structures “in which all mosques in France can sit”, specifies in a press release the association, which was from 2003 to 2021 the State’s interlocutor on the organization of Muslim worship.
“The new CFCM will start from the local base towards the national level” to “give back the voice to the actors on the ground, elected by their peers, who will have the necessary and sufficient legitimacy to defend the interests of the Muslim faith,” adds the press release. The CFCM, which plans next elections “in 2024”, also recorded the end of the co-optation system which meant that half of its members were designated by federations of mosques attached to the countries of origin (Algeria, Morocco, Turkey). .
Competition with Forif
“This designation system, judged by many actors in the field to be arbitrary and undemocratic, had discredited the CFCM and seriously hampered its functioning,” adds the press release. Going through a crisis of representativeness, blocked by internal opposition and weakened by departures, the CFCM was disavowed in 2021 by the executive which had launched at the beginning of 2022 the Forum de l’Islam de France (Forif), made up of actors from land designated by the prefects. It has continued to exist since then, with new statutes, and regularly takes the floor in public debate.
A second session of the Forif must be scheduled in the “coming weeks”, according to Interior. By reorganizing itself, the CFCM wants to provide “pluralist interlocutors, without borders of affiliation,” explained Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the CFCM and the Union of Mosques of France. The CFCM calls on “all mosques in France to support this new form of representation of Muslim worship”. In 2020, when the CFCM was still the body for dialogue with the State, “more than 1,100 mosques” participated in its internal election, according to the press release.
This announcement comes as public authorities are working to end the system of “imams seconded” by other countries (Algeria, Turkey, Morocco), effective January 1, with a transition period in the first quarter.