A French court on Tuesday ordered construction work on a mosque in the Mediterranean port of Marseille to be suspended in response to legal action by far-right groups. The court found in favour of the National Front (FN), the Movement for France (MPF) and the National Republican Movement (MNR), who accused the city of granting a veiled subsidy for the mosque's construction, violating French law on the separation of Church and state.
Marseille city hall decided last July to break a decades-long deadlock over the future mosque by allocating a plot of land for its construction, on a 99-year lease, for a charge of 300 euros per year. The Marseille administrative court overturned the city's decision, ruling that the generous conditions amounted to a subsidy in disguise, demanding that the mosque renegotiate the terms of the lease in the next two months. Jean-Claude Gondard, secretary general of Marseille city hall, said the court decision would cause a delay of three to four months at most, and that a new lease would be submitted to the city council in June. He said the city was committed to file for planning permission in the autumn, but that "the mosque's opponents are very political, and liable to try to block the project every step of the way."
Moulay Abderrahmane Ghoul, regional head of the French Council for the Mulsim Religion, denounced the far-right lawsuit as a "xenophobic and racist political act", but said "the city's will to build the mosque" was not in question... While Marseille's Muslim community is estimated at around 250,000 people, the city's 62 places of worship provide room for only around 6,200 faithful. |