Algerian Imams to be sent to France to counter extremist ideology

The first training session of Algerian imams or religious preachers due to travel to France as part of a bilateral agreement signed between the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the French Interior Ministry opened on Monday at Mohammedia’s Dar El-Imam on the eastern outskirts of Algiers.

This session came in the aftermath of last Friday’s deadly attacks in Paris and after the stigmatization of the Muslim community in France and the role to be played by mosques and imams there.

To this effect, the French authorities have vowed to close down those Muslim places of worship or cultural associations where extremist speeches sowing discord are delivered and to arrest forthwith the perpetrators.

According to Echorouk’s sources, this first training session will be supervised by trainers hailing from the Grand Mosque of Paris and by two others chosen by the religious affairs and endowments ministry.

It should be noted that this training session will be followed up by a complementary one in France, with the thirty selected Algerian imams who will go to France, receiving a 6-month long training there during which they will receive in-depth courses in French language, secularism and the values ​​of the French Republic.

They will then be assigned in mosques controlled by the French Interior Ministry and will be responsible for the fight against the spread of extremist ideology among Muslims of France.

According to the Grand Mosque of Paris, there are nearly 500 mosques across the French territory, stressing that there were no mosques or associations confronted with extremism or involved in terrorist acts.

The same sources revealed that the French authorities have a red list of about 6,000 radical elements who are said to have links with certain mosques in France itself but no one is concerned with mosques or associations supervised by the Grand Mosque of Paris.