France ban on street prayers drives Muslims to makeshift site

[Janana]

(Reuters) - A French ban on praying in the street came into force on Friday, driving thousands of Muslim worshippers in northern Paris into a makeshift prayer site in a disused fire brigade barracks, angering a small but vocal minority.


The street-prayer ban has highlighted France's problems assimilating its 5-million-strong Muslim community, which lacks prayer space, and follows a long-running controversy, fanned by far-right leader Marine Le Pen, over Muslims forced to lay their prayer mats on the streets in big cities.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant directed Muslims in Paris to temporary spaces made available pending the building of a huge new prayer space and warned that force would be used if necessary as police end their tolerance of street prayers.


Seven months before a presidential election, the ban has struck some in France as an attempt to rally far-right sympathizers to President Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right camp.


At the barracks, Cheik Mohammed Salah Hamza oversaw prayers for Muslims who had migrated from around the city. Worshippers streamed in, spreading their woven prayer mats over the floor of the hangar-like building and out into the courtyard.


"It's the beginning of a solution," Hamza told Reuters before the start of the service. "The faithful are very pleased to be here. The space, which holds 2,000, is full."


Many worshippers were also upbeat. "This will be better than rue Mryha," said one man, referring to a Paris street renowned for hosting street prayers. "Apparently, it shocked people."


Le Pen has described the growing phenomenon of praying on the streets and sidewalks as an "invasion."


"It's Marine Le Pen who started all this," a woman who gave her name as Assya said on her way into the former barracks on the outskirts of Paris. "Now the government has banned street prayers and sent us here so they can gather votes from the (far-right) National Front (party) -- that's all."
"NO SYSTEM CAN CONTROL US"


In France, where a strict separation of church and state has been in force for a century, public displays of religious activity are frowned upon.
Yet efforts by Sarkozy's conservative government to restrict religious displays, such as a ban on full-face veils, have drawn criticism as empty measures that unfairly single out Muslims.


France counts the largest Muslim minority of any European country. But only a portion -- about 10 percent, or the same proportion as among Catholics -- are practicing, according to Muslim associations.
As a rule, radical Muslim voices in France are rare, but Friday's prayers in northern Paris drew a small but angry protest from a radical minority more often seen in online posts.


An hour before the first prayer young men with beards, green headbands and banners gathered on rue Myrha to discourage worshippers from moving to the new site.


"No system in the universe can control us aside from Allah," shouted one young man. "There is more dignity in praying in the grass than in their false mosque," said another.


As the prayers began, dozens of young men belonging to a group called Forsane Alizza disrupted the service with shouts of "Allahu akbar" -- "God is greatest" -- and jostled with security.
(Additional reporting by Gerard Bon)


*Source: Reuters

[Bengal_Tiger]

1. The French regime did not need to go as far as making a special law on this, they could just have announced a municipal measure restricting this. The fact that they legislated a law just for this means they wanted to make a big deal out of it.

2. France was the first country in Europe to ban the niqab, and since then Italy, Belgium and now Holland have followed suit.

3. France is very anti-Islamic and plays a destabilizing and negative role in the Muslim world e.g. Algeria (where they sponsor Berber separatists), Morocco, Tunisia, North-west Africa, Lebanon (where they back Christian Maronites).

The French are far worse than the British or Americans who at least have some respect for Islam and the freedom to practise your religion.

However the French should bear in mind what happened to the Soviet Union which sought to destroy Islam too.

[IamDZJ]

why is everyone so sensitive all of a sudden?? I don't see anything wrong the french government asking muslims not to pray in the streets. like for the live of God, back in days people roamed through the desert for food and what not which is why they found the need to pray in the middle of nowhere. now they have no excuse to lay their prayer matt in the middle of the sidewalk and start praying.

[یاسمینه]

Muslims in France don't pray on the streets because they want to pray there. Simply they do that because there is not enough mosques. Islam in France is called very often Islam of basements, Islam of halls, Islam without minarets etc.

[IamDZJ]

you have to learn to see things from other people's view too sometimes. how many of you would be tolerant of a Hindu cremating the body of their deceased family member in the local park across the street from you?? i know i wouldnt be okay with it..what right do you hve then to expect undertanding from others when it comes to your religion??

[یاسمینه]

I try to undestand both sides - Muslims in France and French secularism. I lived in Frenace and I know well how it looks there. Both sides have their rights. Paradoxically this ban may force French authorities to give space/buildings for use as mosques.

[Haris]

Why would they disrupt prayers like that?

This is not a problem as long as proper accomodation is provided for people to pray. At the moment that is temporary (and not really 'proper'). However in recent times the opposition to building mosques especially these super mosques is growing. There would be no problem in the first place if the local councils would grant permission for the expansion of the current mosques so that people won't be forced to pray in the street.

On Jum'uah munz people pray out on the pavement in my local mosque (rennovation work is ongoing as the council only recently granted permission), no-one has a problem with that. Probably because it is a multicultural/multifaith community that has succsefully integrated.

One gets the impression that with the French the issue is not with the inconvenience of people praying on the street but the image that it gives off (a negative one to the far-right)

I agree with the article in that these recent policies look like they are singling out Muslims (a small portion of which are practicing) to gain some popularity for the French president.


Regarding the cremation example, there should be appropriate facilites to provide for that cremation in the first place. Similarly if a hindu was forced to pray in the street because the council was refusing planning permission for the local temple (rarely happens in comparison to mosques) then I would sympathise with him/her and would have no problem with them praying on the street.


Of course one should see things from all perspectives.
It is not always a case of us vs them. But that does not mean that there is never any discrimination against Muslims (or whoever).

[Bengal_Tiger]

By the way the French Muslim community is far weaker than the British Muslim community. Weaker in terms of practise of religion and weaker socio-economically as well as being close to their culture.

The British Muslim community is stronger economically, Islam is stronger here and people are closer to their culture.

This just reinforces my sympathy for French Muslims.