Naissance médiatique de l'intellectuel musulman en France (1989-2005)

C) The widening of the role of these intellectuals

The principal mission of these intellectuals certified by the State is first of all that which is officially assigned to them, namely the organization of the Moslem worship. For example, since 1990, the CORIF decides for the first time collégialement of a common date of Ramadan. Since its installation, CFCM works on certain significant files : all the great challenges which arise for the Moslems today like the formation of the Imams, the pilgrimage in Mecque, the month of Ramadan, the celebration of the religious festivals, the meat halal, the financing of the places of worship or the Moslem chaplaincy in prison are evoked. CFCM can thus continue an installation of an Islam of France remained incomplete.

Playing on the fuzzy border between worship and culture, the members of the Council want to be more than one simple consistory. They reject the idea of one « Moslem CRIF » at their sides. For example, CFCM gives an opinion regularly against « the cultural islamophobie ». Thus, in 2003, reacting to the remarks of the leader-writer of the Point Claude Imbert, the Council hardly installed publishes an in particular stipulating text :

« The French council of the Moslem worship was set up by the law, within the framework of the republican play. He did not think so quickly of being confronted with the claim of the islamophobie. Anxious to fulfill its mission fully, CFCM will require other associations like, to be entitled to act as justice within the framework them procedures making it possible to fight the incentives with hatred or religious discrimination. Because in democracy, the last word should not be allocated to the agitators^193(*). »

The organic Moslem intellectuals were also quickly constrained to express their points of view on problems of company involved in Islam, like the Islamic scarf. These opinions are not besides in unison. The voices diverge between the president from CFCM, Dalil Boubaker, estimating that the port of the veil « is not a fundamental rule of our religion^194(*) » and Fouad Alaoui, which affirms that it is one « regulation^195(*) ». But majority of these official representatives of the Moslem worship, except those which keep a certain independence in spite of their statute, like Soheib Bencheikh for example, condemn the principle of a law^196(*). Even most moderate are opposed to it, like Dalil Boubaker, protesting which it «could be felt by [its] religious community like a suspicion^197(*)». In spite of this majority opposition, it should all the same be recalled that the opinion of CFCM remains purely « advisory ».

If CFCM is thus requested for interior problems posed by Islam, it is especially on the international level that the organic intellectuals, thanks to their symbolic system places of representative of the French Moslem community, showed themselves more linked and most credible. They are supposed, in the event of problems of terrorism, to exempt some words of appeasing. A paramount role, estimates Fouad Alaoui, which judges the shortly after September 11 that « the attacks showed how much it was important, from a symbolic system point of view, that a representative authority can come to a conclusion about important events^198(*) ».

The consulted interlocutors did not await besides the final installation of CFCM to decide with one voice. At the beginning of the American intervention in Iraq of 2003, provisional Commission of organization of the consultation on Islam (Comor) puts for example officially agreement to congratulate the pacifist position on the French diplomacy and calls the faithful ones to « to express their emotion in calms and dignity^199(*) ». Also, as we saw previously, the taking of hostages of the two French journalists in Baghdad at at the end of 2004 corresponds to another great test on the international level of CFCM. This last then sends on the spot a delegation made up of Fouad Alaoui (UOIF), Abdallah Zekri (Mosque of Paris) and of Mohammed Bechari (FNMF) in order to intercede near the Iraqi kidnappers. This geopolitical role, although implicit, is indeed fundamental for the members of the Islam of France.

Forts of their position of official members of Moslem intelligentsia, these interlocutors of the State could widen their role with many fields of competence. With the multiplication of the media events having a direct relationship or not with Islam since 1989, the representatives of what is spirit to become the Islam of France emerged like new intellectual voices. Some figures seemed being impossible to circumvent in any dialog concerning of near or by far the Islamic religion.

Nevertheless, their position remains fragile. The constitution of the Islam of France east still in building site. The fights of influences inside the Council are considerable and can quickly make rock the delicate balance of this French Islamic landscape. Recent blocking by the UOIF of the nomination of Moulay el-Hassan el-Alaoui Talibi at the post of Moslem general chaplain of the prisons^200(*), as well as the difficulty in organizing elections in times and without disputes, are only examples among others of confusion and combat fratricidal which reign within the Islam of France. Besides Dounia Bouzar explains its resignation like the consequence owing to the fact that CFCM « speak only about elections [interns], instead of analyzing what wants to say to be Moslem in a laic company^201(*). « Even if the Council is only at its beginnings, all that is not very good for the public image of these very new organic intellectuals.

Moreover, contrary to what was awaited, CFCM is not however the single interlocutor in certain subjects returning naturally in its field of attribution. The file of the formation of the Imams is a striking example : the meeting of the committee of experts around the International Institute of the Islamic Thought (IIIT) and Mohammed Mestiri can seem an attempt by the ministry for the interior, to circumvent CFCM^202(*). It is thus the proof that the latter, although official authority of Islam by definition, did not sit its authority completely yet.

If the organic Moslem intellectuals pain to answer all the contemporary challenges of Islam, safety will come it from the civil company and of a new type of Moslem intellectual : the leader socio-policy ?

* ¹⁹³ Official statement of the 5/11/2003 CFCM.

* ¹⁹⁴ Michel Kubler, «  To raise the misunderstanding islamo-French  », the Cross, 15/4/1992.

* ¹⁹⁵ Catherine Coroller, «  Secularity  : the hardly buckled speech of the UOIF  », Release, 11/10/2003.

* ¹⁹⁶ Bernard Jouanno, Martine de Sauto and Nicolas Senèze, «  The veil links Christian and Moslem but divides the Jewish community  », the Cross, 28/11/2003.

* ¹⁹⁷ Josette Combined & Carole Barjon, «  Veil  : a law, but which  ?  », the New Observer, 20/11/2003.

* ¹⁹⁸ Xavier Ternisien, «  Pressed by the attacks, the Moslems prepare to elect their representatives  », the World, 13/10/2001.

* ¹⁹⁹ Xavier Ternisien., «  The Moslem representatives call with «calms» and «dignity»  », the World, 22/3/2003.

* ²⁰⁰ Cf Xavier Ternisien, «  The UOIF is sulky the French Council of the Moslem worship  », the World, 10/5/2005.

* ²⁰¹ Claire Chartier, «  Free Moslem woman  », the Express train, 17/1/2005.

* ²⁰² Only two members of CFCM belong to this «  committee the wise ones  ».