French Muslims. Taming Islam

A surprise win for moderates in elections to an official Muslim group

WHEN the French government set up a representative Muslim body two years ago, the idea was both to give Islam an official voice and to co-opt hardline groups in order to temper them. But rival elements in the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) have since bickered so much that it looked as if it might implode. So it was a surprise that on June 19th, the council's first full elections not only passed smoothly, but reinforced the moderates.

The results tilt the 43-strong CFCM board away from the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF), the most radical big Muslim group. It won ten seats, down from 13. The Paris Mosque, led by its rector, Dalil Boubakeur, upped its score from six to ten. The biggest share - 19 seats, up three - went to the National Federation of French Muslims (FNMF), linked to Morocco. With tacit official backing, Mr Boubakeur is now likely to be elected to the job of president that he had held as a nominee.

The council's board was elected by 5,219 delegates from 1,230 prayer places, up from 4,042 delegates from 992 mosques in 2003. Since voting weight depends on a mosque's surface area, and many new ones have Moroccan links, this helped the FNMF. The Paris Mosque, linked to Algeria, boosted its chances in two regions by standing in alliance with a Turkish orthodox Islamic group.

The outcome may signal a wider shift in the fortunes of the UOIF, a group inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood that advocates the “Islamicisation” of society. In France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim population - some 5m strong - the group's success in recruiting young French Muslims to conservative Islam has inspired political worry. Its support for the wearing of headscarves helped prompt a ban on them in state schools. But, with the ban widely accepted, the UOIF's stock may have dipped.

Nobody would suggest, in a week that has seen a string of arrests of suspected Islamist terrorists around Europe, that France has solved the problem of militant Islam. One of the UOIF's problems is a feeling among younger Muslims that it co-operates too much with officialdom. Disappointed, some are turning to more shadowy groups outside the CFCM, which has still not earned widespread legitimacy.

The CFCM's main achievements were to sink differences over the headscarf ban and unite to appeal for the release of French hostages in Iraq. But, at home, many people of North African origin reject the CFCM's narrowly clerical origins: only 5% of French Muslims go to the mosque every week. Others object to its failure to cut foreign ties. “We are not creating a French Islam,” comments Dounia Bouzar, a female member of the council, who resigned earlier this year. “We are creating diplomats.”