US embassy cable - 05PARIS6890

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PARIS 006890 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/03/2015 
TAGS: PREL, KISL, PTER, FR 
SUBJECT: DIALOGUE WITH MUSLIM MODERATES AND MAGHREB 
AMBASSADORS ON ISLAM IN FRANCE 
 
REF: A. PARIS 6810 
     B. PARIS 6579 AND PREVIOUS 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Craig Stapleton, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1.  (C) Summary: In the context of ongoing Muslim outreach 
(refs), Ambassador recently visited the Paris Mosque, paid 
separate courtesy calls on ambassadors from Morocco and 
Algeria -- the two leading countries of origin for the 
majority of French Muslims -- and met with a French-Tunisian 
author seeking to revive Islam's pluralist tradition.  During 
the Ambassador's Paris Mosque visit, President of the Council 
for the Muslim Faith (CFCM) Dalil Boubakeur stressed the need 
for Muslims to change the negative global image of Islam and 
stand up to fundamentalists.  Boubakeur also criticized 
"Wahhabite" funding of fundamentalists in France, and 
emphasized the need for French imams to obey French law and 
refrain from political activities.  Boubakeur described job 
discrimination as the leading obstacle to integration of 
French Muslims, a point seconded by the Algerian and Moroccan 
ambassadors.  The Algerian ambassador described French 
Moroccan Muslims as more conservative than their Algerian 
counterparts and assessed that France was moving in a 
positive direction on integration issues overall, though 
problems remained. The Moroccan ambassador, meanwhile, 
stressed the need not to impugn all Muslims as terrorists, 
noted shared interests among French Jews and Muslims in 
fighting discrimination, and expressed pessimism on prospects 
for improving Muslim integration in the run-up to France's 
2007 election.  Meanwhile, French-Tunisian author Abdelwahab 
Meddeb stressed to the Ambassador that education, including 
reacquainting Muslims with pluralist, historic tenets of 
Islamic thought, remained essential to curbing extremist 
ideologies.  End summary. 
 
PARIS MOSQUE RECTOR/CFCM PRESIDENT 
--------------------------------- 
 
2.  (SBU)  Ambassador visited the Grand Mosque of Paris 
September 22 for a courtesy call on mosque rector and CFCM 
President Dalil Boubakeur, a leading proponent of a moderate 
Islam in harmony with French values and a preferred 
interlocutor for the GoF.  Boubakeur was eager to offer the 
Ambassador a tour of the extensive mosque facilities, built 
in 1922 with GoF funding (an exception to the famous French 
law of 1905 enshrining separation of church and state) in 
recognition of the contribution of Muslim soldiers from 
French colonies during World War I.  Boubakeur said the 
mosque typically attracts 3,000 to 5,000 persons for Friday 
prayer services, while some 20,000 to 30,000 attend "Eid al 
Kebir" prayers. The mosque has five imams under the authority 
of its Grand Mufti, but also supervises another 100 imams 
affiliated with the Grand mosque throughout France.  In 
addition to traditional prayer services, the Paris Mosque 
also runs an institute for training imams, in addition to 
operating a cafe and hammam popular with Muslims and 
non-Muslims alike.  Boubakeur described the primary 
challenges facing Islam as how to practice Islam in a secular 
society, how to encourage Islam to accept modernity, how to 
help Muslim women escape outdated traditions, and how to face 
the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism, the latter of which, 
Boubakeur said, exceeded his capacity. 
 
3. (C) Boubakeur stressed to the Ambassador that the U.S., 
Europe, and Muslim-majority countries faced a common danger 
of Islamic fundamentalism, which some had woken up to only 
after 9/11 or the July 2005 London bombings. (In a separate 
conversation with poloffs, Boubakeur decried the UK decision 
to name Tariq Ramadan to an advisory board on Islam, likening 
what he termed a Western fascination with fundamentalists as 
similar to "a bird being hypnotized by a snake.")  Boubakeur 
emphasized to the Ambassador that Muslims must not be silent 
and need to change the image of Islam themselves, and 
convince brothers and sisters to accept tolerance.  He cited 
as an example the GoF decision to ban veils in public 
schools, which had been predicted to cause major disruptions 
among French Muslims, while in fact the policy was entering 
its second year of implementation with minimal problems.  The 
Paris mosque, in addition to advocating French Muslim 
compliance with the religious symbols (veil) ban, was urging 
the 100 imams under its supervision to obey French law and 
refrain from political speech in mosques. 
 
4. (C) Asked about the presence of Salafists (extremists 
advocating a return to Islam as it was practiced in the 7th 
century) in France, Boubakeur compared Salafism to a sickness 
which goes up and down, and was now going underground in the 
wake of the heightened GoF security posture following the 
London bombings.  Boubakeur conceded that there were 
fundamentalists in France who did not advocate violence, such 
as the Union for Islamic Organizations in France (UOIF), one 
of his main rivals in the CFCM. The GoF had sought to balance 
fundamentalists with the Paris Mosque faction in the CFCM, 
which made Boubakeur's job as CFCM president much more 
difficult.  Boubakeur added that France had never faced a 
problem with Islamic fundamentalists before the 1979 Iranian 
revolution, before which Arabs had found other ways to 
express their "political dramas."  Boubakeur conceded that he 
faced threats from Islamic extremists for his views, but he 
did not fear them, as they remained weak and their ideology 
was contrary to the progress of history. 
 
5. (C)  Boubakeur acknowledged that lack of integration and 
socio-economic problems among French Muslims, namely 
unemployment and poor housing, remained important factors 
behind the spread of fundamentalism in France.  Boubakeur 
asserted that integration of French Muslims was moving 
forward in France, but not fast enough for a small minority 
who that transferring socio-economic problems into religious 
ones and seeking a new identity in Islam.  Boubakeur affirmed 
that most French Muslims wanted to be integrated into French 
society, but continued socio-economic inequalities made this 
process more difficult.  The GoF had floated various programs 
to address the "social fracture" in France but, in 
Boubakeur's view, did not have the means to fully address the 
problem.  Boubakeur also blamed European governments for 
being not insistent enough that new immigrants adhere to 
European values of secularism; he noted that during a recent 
visit to Brussels, his first in many years, he was shocked to 
see that it resembled a "Third World" capital. 
 
6. (C) Asked what more the GoF could do to help stem the tide 
of Islamic fundamentalism, Boubakeur stressed that Western 
governments needed to make clear distinctions between Islamic 
moderates and fundamentalists.  President Chirac had sought 
to be helpful and had written Boubakeur to express moral 
support for his efforts.  The GoF had been responsive to 
Boubakeur's appeals to increase the number of Muslim 
chaplains in prisons (now just 66 out or 900, despite half 
the French prison population being Muslim) and name the first 
Muslim chaplains in the French Army.  Boubakeur added that it 
would be helpful if the U.S. and others would ask Saudi 
Arabia and Gulf countries to stop sending "Wahhabite" money 
to fundamentalists and "Salafists" in France, and perhaps 
direct more money his way.  He noted that a massive 
renovation project now underway at the mosque had been funded 
by the GoF, the city of Paris, Algeria, and Qatar, but so far 
no Saudi money had come forward.  Boubakeur summed up his 
discussion with the Ambassador by appealing for Western help 
in developing a peaceful Islam, at harmony with today's 
culture and enlightened like the Islam which had flourished 
during the Middle Ages. 
 
ALGERIAN AMBASSADOR ON INTEGRATION, FUNDAMENTALISM, CFCM 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
7. (C) During a separate meeting with the Ambassador, 
outgoing Algerian Ambassador to France Mohammed Al-Ghoualmi 
offered insights on the estimated 3 million Algerians and 
French citizens of Algerian origin living in France, the 
single largest component group within France's Muslim 
population of 5 to 6 million. (Note: Ghoualmi's estimate of 
the French Algerian population is a bit higher than most 
published estimates, which are not authoritative, given the 
GoF ban on maintaining statistics by national or religious 
origin; a recent MFA publication estimated that Algeria is 
the country of origin for some 35 percent of French Muslims, 
which would put the Algerian-origin population between 1.75 
and 2 million.  End comment.)   Ghoualmi described French 
Algerian Muslims as somewhat invisible and not well 
integrated in France, although there were some "brilliant 
exceptions" in the fields of medicine, the army, diplomacy 
and sports.  Like Boubakeur, Ghoualmi singled out 
unemployment as the most significant problem facing French 
Muslims.  He observed that a diploma held by a French Muslim 
did not have the same value as one held by a non-Muslim 
counterpart, and asserted that the practice of refusing job 
applications based on the name of the applicant remained 
commonplace in France.  (Note: A recent study by a French 
government job discrimination panel reached similar findings. 
 End note.)  That said, Ghoualmi affirmed that the GoF was 
well-aware of the problem, with politicians like Nicolas 
Sarkozy making bold proposals on "positive discrimination" 
(the French term for affirmative action).  Ghoualmi assessed 
that, overall, things were evolving positively for French 
Algerian Muslims.  By comparison, he recalled racist, 
anti-Arab violence which took place in France in the 1970's, 
which "no one spoke out against" at the time. 
8. (C) Ghoualmi described the rise of Islamic fundamentalism 
in France as a serious problem, and linked it to the 
separation of North African immigrants from mainstream French 
society.   Ghoualmi asserted that France needed to be more 
accepting of "composite identities" among its Muslim 
population, in order for the latter to achieve full 
integration.  He explained the practice of wearing 
headscarves or beards among French Muslims as tied to the 
need to create an identity, rather than to religion itself. 
Ghoualmi concluded that France was becoming more accepting of 
the notion that the French identity or culture need not be a 
monolith.  He noted that a 2001 France-Algeria soccer match 
in Paris, in which French-Algerian fans booed the 
"Marseillaise" and rooted for the opposing team, had served 
as a "wake-up" call for the GoF on the depth of its 
integration problem.  Ghoualmi also made a distinction 
between French Muslims of Algerian and Moroccan origin, 
concluding that French-Moroccan immigrants were more 
observant and prone to fundamentalism than their 
French-Algerian counterparts. 
 
9. (C) Ghoualmi described the creation of the CFCM as a 
positive move, and noted that then-Interior Minister Sarkozy 
had consulted him before launching the organization in 2003. 
Ghoualmi commended the CFCM for helping the Islamic faith 
"emerge from the shadows" in France.  At the same time, he 
advised that the organization should not be considered 
representative of all French Muslims, and that its mission 
should be limited to matters such as building mosques, 
administering cemeteries, and supervising halal meat sales. 
He added that, in order for the CFCM to be a positive force, 
the Paris Mosque needed to hold on to its relative weight 
within the organizations, one country should not be allowed 
to dominate, and everything needed to be done to prevent 
having extremists take charge of the organization.  He 
conceded that this was much easier in theory than in 
practice, given the serious rifts among the component groups 
of the CFCM. 
 
MOROCCAN AMBASSADOR: DON'T BLAME MAJORITY FOR ACTS OF FEW 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
10. (C) Moroccan Ambassador Fathallah Sijilmassi, in a 
separate discussion with the Ambassador, described the 
estimated one million French-Moroccans in France as seeking 
to preserve both identities, by traveling back and forth 
frequently between the two countries.  Sijilmassi described 
French Moroccans as less religious than their compatriots in 
Morocco, but trying to hold on to traditions.  Sijilmassi 
said he did not discern an increased threat of fundamentalism 
among the majority of French Muslims, and noted that a small 
number of individuals could exact a great deal of damage. 
Sijilmassi described the majority of French Muslims as 
feeling frustrated by the association of Islam with terrorism 
and the notion that law-abiding French citizens should be 
held responsible for the acts of a criminal few.  At the same 
time, Sijilmassi affirmed that French Muslims needed to 
reject incitements to violence, and noted that the 
international community was paying the price for the "laxity 
of the past" on this issue.  Sijilmassi added that he 
frequently visited mosques throughout France to get a better 
sense of community concerns. 
 
11. (C) Like Boubakeur and Ghoualmi, Sijilmassi described job 
discrimination as the top preoccupation of French Muslims, 
and insisted that it was a "very real" problem.  Noting that 
French Jews and Muslims faced similar problems over job 
discrimination by last name, he said he had initiated 
dialogue with the Jewish Council for Religious Institutions 
in France (CRIF) and found both communities to have a 
converging interest in countering discrimination.  Unlike 
Boubakeur and Ghoualmi, Sijilmassi was less optimistic about 
prospects for improving integration of French Muslims in the 
near term.  He cited the looming 2007 presidential elections 
in France, and observed that the 2002 showing of the 
far-right National Front, which garnered over 15 percent of 
the vote at that time, would push presidential candidates 
towards courting extreme-right voters.  The GoF emphasis on 
security in the run-up to the elections would further 
complicate matters.  That said, Sijilmassi noted that French 
Muslims were voting more and starting to increase their 
involvement in politics.  While noting that French Muslims 
tended to vote left, he credited President Chirac with being 
a "champion" of the Muslim community in France, and also 
praised Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe for sending positive 
messages. 
 
FRENCH - TUNISIAN AUTHOR ON "THE MALADY OF ISLAM" 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
12. (C) The Ambassador welcomed French-Tunisian author and 
professor Abdelwahab Meddeb to a recent roundtable lunch on 
Middle East issues, where he joined a group of three other 
French think-tankers and emboffs.  Meddeb presented the 
Ambassador with a copy of his 2002 book, "The Malady of 
Islam," in which he diagnosed the "malady" of Islam to be its 
alienation from the West and the corrosive influence wrought 
by fundamentalism.  Meddeb cited education -- specifically 
educating Muslims about the pluralist tradition of Islamic 
thought --  as key to curbing extremist ideologies in Europe 
and the Muslim world.  He asserted that countries like Saudi 
Arabia should not have a monopoly on Islamic thought, and 
added that scholars in the West had a base of knowledge on 
the historic, pluralist tradition of Islam which they should 
convey to the people of the Middle East region.  Rather than 
echo his French compatriots' warnings against Western efforts 
to impose views on the region, Meddeb concluded that we 
should not be shy about outside engagement to help the 
Islamic world rediscover its pluralist tradition.  On a 
separate note, Meddeb was the only one among the four French 
participants to express support for Operation Iraqi Freedom. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
13. (C) Comment: We will continue and expand these 
Ambassadorial-level exchanges, which were well-received by 
all participants, to gain a better picture of Muslim 
community issues in France and seek greater cooperation with 
like-minded opponents of extremism.  Although CFCM President 
Boubakeur's popularity and close ties with the GoF and 
Algerian government are often questioned in the French media, 
his message of tolerance and rejection of extremism is worthy 
of support.  Our Public Affairs section is exploring means 
for possible cooperation with Boubakeur's Islamic Institute 
at the Paris Mosque, including book donations and IVLP 
programs.  The Ambassador plans to continue high-level Muslim 
outreach in October by hosting the embassy's fifth annual 
iftar with French Muslim community leaders and civil society 
representatives. End comment. 
Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm 
STAPLETON