Today's Date:

It give me great pleasure to speak during the congress organized by the Union of France's Islamic Organizations (UOIF – Union des Organisations Islamiques de France) at what is a historic moment for you.

The Muslims in France have made clear their determination to be French people like the others, to be French Muslims practising a French form of Islam. My thoughts are first and foremost with your faithful and their families. It is unacceptable in France for a Muslim to be regarded as a different sort of citizen, as one with no right to live his religion and pass it on to his children in an atmosphere of respect and dignity.

In France, the Muslim faith must not be a religion apart. It must find its rightful place like the other faiths that were given recognition a long time ago. No more, but no less than that.

Today, more than ever, we must deliver a strong message together. At a time when the war in Iraq casts a long shadow – when some are prone to find pretexts for creating suspicion and confrontation in our country – your gathering is duty-bound to present an image of integration, peace, serenity and citizenship. In this respect, I want to pay tribute to the leaders of the Muslim community. Like your counterparts in the other religions, you have spoken out in a way that is commensurate with the responsibilities you bear.

May I thank Mr Breze, the President of the UOIF, and Mr Fouad Alaoui, its Secretary General. I thank them for being a driving force behind the setting-up of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM – Conseil français du Culte musulman).

The success of the elections last week is a success for all the Muslims in France. By electing their CFCM representatives, they have made a commitment so that the Muslim faith can have its seat at the Republic’s table. This is a victory for French Muslims who have thereby signalled their determination to live their religion in peace and with respect for Republican values. France is the first democratic country to have successfully taken this step. Now it is up to you to take part in it.

The French Council for the Muslim Faith belongs to you, as do the Regional Councils of the Muslim Faith (Conseils régionaux du Culte musulman).

Their first task is to bring the Muslim faith out into the open. In our history, we have seen only too frequently how ignorance has been an excuse for accusations, suspicion, fear and confrontation. There can be no tolerance when there is mutual ignorance. It is important for everyone living in our country that you should be better known, that you bring out into the open who you are, citizens like any other French people, who are simply committed to a religion which has come more recently into our collective life than other faiths and therefore needs to be demystified.

Thanks to the CFCM and the Regional Councils, you will have known and recognized fora for dialogue. I know you have many internal debates because I have got to know you better during the last few months. One characteristic of Islam is the diversity of its schools of thought, its believers and their cultures.

There is no question of making it uniform. There is no question of singling out and distinguishing one official form of Islam. It is not for the Republic to act as the arbiter of your internal debates. These religious, internal debates are not its affair.

That being said, I think the Muslims of France need to bring the reality of their concerns and the richness of their debates out into the open. You will silence those who are so keen to stigmatize the successes of some and the failures of others. Your diversity is an asset which these representative bodies will help reveal, in order to put a stop to this.

I also want to tell you that this success today is not due to one particular person. It is not mine. It is the success of every Muslim who desires to live his religion in France like other French people.

The CFCM will be responsible for engaging in a dialogue with the State and the public authorities in order to establish some basic principles about essential issues such as the content of televised religious broadcasts, function of representatives of faiths in prisons and hospitals, etc., the place of women – a matter of major concern from the point of view of freedom for every woman – and the training of the imams.

This last question is very much a priority. Young Muslims in France need imams who understand them, who are themselves steeped in French culture, its structures and its traditions, and who speak the same language as they do. If Islam is to be fully integrated into the Republic, its leading representatives must themselves be perfectly integrated into the Republic and therefore have been trained in France. We should not have to depend on foreign countries for imams who do not speak a word of French.

I also believe that it is indispensable for the imams to have a proper status so that they can live in decent conditions. I know that this is currently not always the case. Too many imams are relying on the RMI [minimum income guaranteed to all individuals over the age of 25 whose income from all sources is below a certain level]. This does not indicate good integration. As is done with the other religions, the imams need to enjoy the financial support of the Muslim religious authorities, such as the associations which manage the places of worship.

As for the Regional Councils of the Muslim Faith, they will at last be able to establish a dialogue not only with the local authorities – the préfet [high-ranking civil servant who represents the State at the level of the department or region] or the elected representatives – but also with the other religions in order to settle the everyday issues involved in the practice of a religion. I am thinking for example of the preparations for Eid el-Kebir, to ensure that your festival can take place in the proper conditions and in accordance with health requirements. I am also thinking of the problem of Muslim sections in the cemeteries, which requires your being able to agree their location with the mayors. Everyone must be able to bury their dead, pray for them, honour them and love them in the manner required by their religion and culture. Death makes us all equal. The grief of a Muslim is the same as that of a Catholic, a Jew or a Protestant.

The setting up of this body is not just an institutional debate. It is first and foremost a question of recognizing the right of Muslims to live their faith like other people and thus to be fully-fledged French citizens, French people like everybody else.

The facts are plain: 5 million Muslims live in France. There cannot be two classes of citizen: those who live their faith and the others, who are not recognized or worse, who are obliged to hide and who consequently cause concern. Secularism is a fundamental principle of our Republic. Far from being an enemy of religion, secularism establishes the principle that the Republic guarantees that religions, all religions, can be practised without giving any one of them special recognition. In other words, as long as a religion is compatible with the law of the Republic, everyone is free to practise his or her religion.

The aim is not to “institutionalize" Islam. There would be no point in doing so for the Republic does not choose between the different faiths. It does not give special recognition to any of them, nor does it exclude any of them, either de jure or de facto.

I also have a duty to ensure that the diversity of French society remains an asset and not a handicap. This is even more necessary in times of tension which can serve as a pretext for attacks, or racist and intolerant acts.

I am very well aware that too many Muslims in France are fearful and feel that they are the victims of conflation. I also know that there is a reciprocal fear among our fellow-citizens, who are confused by underground, manipulative pamphlets and other forms of extremism expressed in various parts of the world. Let us take care to allay these fears so that they do not ferment any tendency of people to cling to their idea of cultural identity or adopt radical views.

Let us make sure that Islam in France is what it should be, i.e. a religion of tolerance and openness. I am convinced that religion, if it clearly respects Republican values, is a force for positive values and for integration

You have taken a great step forward in showing how much the Muslims in France wished to be treated like the other believers. Today you are giving Islam the right to sit at the Republic’s table in the same way as the other religions. This means that Islam must show absolute respect for the laws of the Republic.

This is one point on which I shall have zero tolerance: I do not want any excesses by a minority to penalize all the Muslims who wish to live in peace.

In France we cannot have an Islam which speaks against Republican values. That Islam is unlawful in France and I shall accept all the consequences of this. The 1905 Act established the principle that any talk in a place of worship inciting resistance to the application of the law or stirring up one section of the population against another must be punished. Have no doubt about it: it will be.

This law is a just law and it applies to everyone whatever their religion.

It applies both to the imams and to the priests and rabbis without discrimination, for there is only one law in France, the law of the Republic. And this law will be applied. It is of fundamental importance, for the whole of the society in which you live and for yourselves, for the common law to be enforced whatever the cultural ties.

Two examples:

The law says that the photograph on a national identity card must be taken bareheaded, whether the holder is a man or a woman. This obligation is respected by Catholic nuns, and by all the women who live in France. Nothing would justify a different law for women of the Muslim faith.

The law makes a distinction between religious associations that enjoy numerous tax advantages but cannot be subsidized by the State and cultural associations that can be subsidized by the State. Let there be no confusion. When a town or city council lends a room to a supposedly cultural association but the room is used as a prayer room, the council is breaking the law.

This law applies to everyone. When it was being drafted, it already gave rise to numerous debates with the other religions. Today, however, this law is no longer open to negotiation because it is at the very heart of the Republic. If you demand a different law, you will not be able to demand the same rights as the other religions.

And such differentiation is not the path of integration. It is the path of rejection. I will be tough when it comes to the enforcement of the Republic’s laws because such toughness is the basic prerequisite for your right to live your religion, as it is for all faiths.

Moreover, no law of the Republic can be applied more rigorously or more gently to some and not to others. No one can claim the right to be different in order to flout the law. No one can claim his own law to be above that of the Republic. This is a non-negotiable principle for we have too often seen the dangers which tolerating the unacceptable can bring in the long run.

Some deprived housing estates have seen gang law attempt to rival the law of the Republic. Police officers have been attacked simply because it is their job to enforce the law. Then your own children are the victims of these yobs and no longer dare to play beside the blocks of flats. Then families are tempted to join together in communities to protect themselves from other people. And finally the faithful are afraid to practise their faith openly, fearing to cross a square in order to go to the mosque.

Your families, like those of all our fellow-citizens, have the right to live in peace. That is why I attach so much importance to the reduction of crime. And in order to do that, I am convinced that the law is the same for everyone and it applies everywhere.

This has to be an equally strong imperative in the case of every one of the Republic’s laws and especially the one which protects the principle of secularism. No practice can thwart the law of the Republic.

When a believer goes to the mosque, the synagogue or the church, I cannot tolerate him being attacked simply because he is a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. We will be completely intolerant of those who exploit religion for their own ends and make it say what it has never said. The person who burns down a prayer room in Nancy is the same as the person who throws stones at the faithful on their way to the synagogue. His is the face of hatred, racism and stupidity. There is no place in the Republic for such a man.

Muslims are fully-fledged citizens like everybody else. Your children go to primary school with the other children, they sit in the same classrooms, they play together and tomorrow they will go together to secondary school and university. They will work together in France. In their turn, they will found a family.

The future of French Muslims is within the Republic, it cannot be alongside it.

Today, this message is your message. It is the message you have endorsed by electing the French Council of the Muslim Faith.

You must show those who doubted your determination to integrate that you are resolved not to allow an extremist form of Islam to develop in cellars and garages.

As for those extremists who consider that Islam is incompatible with the Republic, you have proved them wrong because you too are convinced that a faith has no authority above the laws of the Republic and the Republic has no desire to impose a faith.

This is a great message of hope for all the Muslims of France who have the right to be full citizens, to live their faith, to pass their faith on to their children and to build their lives in France with as much dignity as other French people.

It is also a great message of hope for our country, which is committed, very deeply committed, to its values, which is tolerant, welcoming, which holds out its hand to you – as it is its duty because you too are citizens – and which in return expects you to make its Republican message your own.

The national community holds out its hand to you. It looks at you. You are now accountable for the image of every Muslim in France. Take the hand held out to you by the Republic. Do not disappoint it for the consequences would be huge./.