The interim relief appeal of the Muslim establishment in Nice rejected

This is a new disappointment for the Muslim college Avicenne. On Thursday, August 15, the administrative court of Nice announced that it was rejecting the interim relief appeal of the private college outside the contract. An emergency legal procedure that the establishment had initiated following a new refusal by the prefecture for its transition under contract.

The decision rendered by the administrative court is a decision on form and not on substance. The judge considered that the urgency pleaded by the establishment was not characterized since enrollments were increasing sharply and the sustainability of the college was not threatened. However, according to France Bleu, the court asked the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes, Hugues Moutouh, to re-examine Avicenne’s file by September 8, 2024.

Request for passage under contract since 2020

Opened in 2015 in the Ariane district of Nice, the Avicenne college is managed by an association chaired by Otmane Aissaoui, also president of the Union of Muslims of the Alpes-Maritimes (Umam), linked to the Muslims of France (ex-UOIF). The private establishment outside the contract which welcomes around a hundred students, has been asking since 2020 to switch to a contract, a status which was systematically refused by the prefecture.

During the first two applications, the college was refused passage because of the lack of sports classes and the absence of a physics-chemistry laboratory. Since then, the college has made the necessary adjustments but this year again the college’s application was rejected on the grounds that the State no longer had the credits to grant it to finance it. Saying that it was ready to sign a contract for a symbolic euro, the establishment had filed an interim appeal in the hope of having this decision annulled by the start of the school year.

“We cannot both blame Muslims for not wanting to get involved and comply with the rules of the Republic, and when they ask for a contract, tell them “no, we have no more money, we don’t want you””denounced the college’s lawyer, Me Sefen Guez Guez, during the hearing on Monday August 12.

Saved from closure

The status of a private school establishment under contract would allow the college to obtain state funding and better access to the city’s sports facilities. Above all, it would allow students from the Muslim school to more easily integrate public high schools after their brevet. Currently, half of Avicenne’s 4th grade students go to a public college for the 3rd grade in order to benefit from continuous assessment for the brevet and to avoid an additional exam before being able to apply to a public high school.

In recent months, the college was threatened with closure. Indeed, in March, at the request of the Minister of National Education Nicole Belloubet, the prefecture had announced the closure of the college on suspicions of opaque financing contrary to the law on separatism. On July 2, the administrative court overturned this decision, considering that simple accounting errors did not justify such a radical measure.