Anti-Muslim acts down in 2022, according to Gérald Darmanin

Anti-Muslim acts recorded by the Ministry of the Interior are on the decline. Invited to the Great Mosque of Paris on Tuesday April 4 for a iftar – meal breaking the Ramadan fast – to which some thirty ambassadors from Muslim countries were invited, Gérald Darmanin gave a speech.

He indicated that 188 anti-Muslim acts had been recorded by the services of the Ministry of the Interior in 2022, a decrease of 12% compared to the previous year. In 2021, 213 anti-Muslim acts were counted among 1,659 anti-religious acts, including 857 anti-Christian acts and 589 anti-Semitic acts.

Understated numbers

Gérald Darmanin indicated that these anti-Muslim acts ranged from “insulting tag on the mosque to attacks on people. » The Ministry of the Interior specifies that among these 188 facts, 76 relate to attacks on places of worship or cemeteries. Although the numbers are down, Gérald Darmanin suggested that these acts were underestimated.

“It is true that it is 12% less acts compared to the year 2021, but it is 188 acts too many, and it is all those that we do not declare, because we decided not to take any further steps with the police and the gendarmerie, because we got used to it”, he developed. The Minister of the Interior assured the ” determination “ of the government so that these acts are not “never eligible”, “always prosecuted” And “doomed. »

“We are extremely attached to acts that can affect Muslims in their faith, preventing them from living their faith as citizens”, he added after the speeches of the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, Chems-eddine Hafiz, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. “French secularism is not the negation of religions and it is even less the negation of religion in the public sphere.he recalled. We know that there are still far too many anti-religious acts in our country, carried out out of wickedness, stupidity, cowardice, hatred, which affect all religions. (…) This does not satisfy us in any way. »

New head of the central worship office

Among the ambassadors of Muslim countries present on this occasion was Said Moussi, ambassador of Algeria, to which the Great Mosque of Paris is close. Also present were Muslim leaders and representatives of religions, such as Mgr Laurent Ulrich, Archbishop of Paris, Brother Jean-François Bour, Director of the National Service for Relations with Muslims of the Conference of Bishops of France, Moché Lewin, Vice -president of the Conference of European Rabbis, and Anthony Boussemart, president of the Buddhist Union of France (UBF).

In front of them, the Minister of the Interior announced the forthcoming appointment, for the first time, of a woman at the head of the central office of worship (BCC). She will succeed Clément Rouchouse, in office since 2019.

“I want to repeat that the work we do with representatives of the Muslim faith is very important”underlined the Minister of the Interior, referring to the work of the Forum de l’islam de France, a new platform for dialogue between the State and the Muslim faith after the CFCM, of which he mentioned ” the end. » However, this latter body, which has no longer been the interlocutor of the State since the end of 2021, announced at the beginning of March the overhaul of its statutes, claiming to represent “more than 1,100 mosques. »