Bartelone: “The Grand Mosque of Paris can’t be a property of Algeria”

The Chairman of the French National Assembly, Claude Bartelone, has replied – indirectly – to the Minister of Religious Affairs, Mohamed Aissa, on the projected “ownership” by Algeria of the Grand Mosque of Paris.

In a letter dated September 28, and addressed to the head of an organization of the extreme right who asked about the steps taken by Algeria to own this place of worship, Claude Bartolone was adamant: “The law French [to which you refer] does not exist. The idea of “ownership” of an association by a foreign country is not present in the laws of France, he emphasized. 

The blunt response of the Chairman of the French National Assembly was corroborated in another correspondence from an official of the Parliament’s communication service. “We did not find the legal origin of this statement” on “a possible sale of the Grand Mosque of Paris to Algeria” wrote to this effect, Pierre-François Derminon, assistant administrator of the division of the multimedia information service.

The Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments, Mohamed Aissa, said in early December 2015, that “Algeria has officially begun appropriation procedures of the Grand Mosque of Paris.” In a presentation before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the national people’s assembly around the status of places of worship of the national community abroad, the minister said that “the procedures to make the Paris Mosque a property of the Algerian state were formally initiated through the Embassy of Algeria in Paris.

“This approach, he had specified, is based on a French law which states that “a foreign country that has financed a French association for more than 15 years, may claim ownership of this entity, which is the case for the Grand Mosque of Paris, administered by the company of Endowments”.