PARIS: In an important declaration on the future of Islam in
France, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has declared not only his unflinching
support for French Muslims , he's also said that the French will just have to
accept Islam in all of its various manifestations.
"If you decide that Islam is incompatible in France with the values of our
Republic," noted Mr Sarkozy, "then what do you do with the five
million Muslims who reside in France? Do you expel them, do you force them to
convert themselves, do you ask them not to practice their religion?"
Mr Sarkozy, reacting to recent criticism of the CFCM (Conseil francais du culte
musulman), the single representative organism for French Muslims, said that
"you just can't accept a situation where you have, on one side, those who
have the right to live their faith, and, on the other, those who are forbidden
to do so."
"Let's not forget that Islam is the country's second most important
religion, and that the time had come for it to have the right to dispose of its
own representative organism capable not only of representing its interests
before the French government, but also of engaging itself in a dialogue with
the country's other religions."
Mr Sarkozy noted that members of other Muslim organization "had just as
much right" to belong to the CFCM, and exist in France, as did other
religions.