Averroès Muslim High School, Deprived of Subsidies, Back in Court
This Thursday, July 11 at 2:30 p.m., the administrative court examined a new appeal filed by the lawyers of the private Muslim high school Averroès, whose association contract the State decided to terminate on December 7, 2023. A new legal ordeal for this establishment, which has long been a regional flagship, aligning good results in exams, and which, today, is accused of various breaches of its obligations against a backdrop of suspicions of collusion with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Broadly speaking, the freedom of denominational institutions under contract is regulated. They can foster religious sensitivity there, teach religion, but not, for example, hold statements that are contrary to the values of the Republic. However, the ridge line is not always easy to maintain, including in Catholic education where catechism classes have sometimes been sharply reframed by the State. The contract also requires, in return for public funding, acceptance of being controlled by the State.
Muslim Ethics
In the case of Averroes, a course in Muslim ethics is at the heart of the tensions. In a report dated March 2023, which served as support for the decision to terminate the association contract by the Nord prefecture, the regional court of auditors noted several problems related to this teaching.
Since then, the case has taken a legal turn, of which the hearing on July 11th constitutes a new episode. This is a new request for interim relief, with a view to obtaining the suspension of the decision to terminate the contract, while the courts examine the merits of the case. Such a maintenance would, from the point of view of the establishment, allow it to prepare for the start of the school year in September. A question of “survival”according to his lawyers.
Yet, “a first referral was rejected on February 12, 2024explains Me Frédéric Jablonski, lawyer who represented Averroès at the time. This new appeal introduces new evidence in order to respond to the criticisms made at the time.” The magistrates then considered that two breaches alone justified the termination of the contract.
Head of establishment error
First of all, the refusal by the head of the establishment, in June 2022, to open the door to investigators who came unexpectedly to examine the establishment’s computers. “He had explained that he could not receive them, being busy with a security commission which was being held the same day,” the lawyer recalls. The new procedure will attempt to show that this error by the head of the establishment should not bind the entire establishment, since he was dismissed following his refusal.
The second criticism upheld by the judges in February concerned the presence, among the books in the Muslim ethics course programme, of a work some of whose content was contrary to the laws of the Republic, The 40 Hadiths of Imam An NawawiThe institution had tried to argue that this book had never been taught and that it had, moreover, disappeared from the program distributed to teachers. “Today we will bring more than 80 testimonies from families who report that their children have never heard of this book, continues Frédéric Jablonski. This will also corroborate the conclusions of a general inspection which found nothing wrong with this teaching.” Response expected on July 22.
