“We no longer know the taste of joy.” With these sad words, the Muslims of the city of Nice in southern France express their feelings before celebrating Eid al-Adha, filled with bitterness after the offensive political speeches and the continuous pressure they have been facing for months.
“We feel as if we are not full citizens,” says Othman Issawi, the imam of the mosque in the city where about 20,000 Muslims live, and he is the president of the Union of Muslims of the Alpine-Maritime region, speaking of “anti-Islamic actions” in secondary schools and universities, and of “the negative view of veiled women.” And searches without warning in mosques…we feel this here more than anywhere else.”
Feeling upset and upset is nothing new. Islam has regularly been the subject of political campaigns in the region. The July 14, 2016 attack on the sea promenade in Nice, then the knife attack in Notre Dame Cathedral in 2020, fueled feelings of hatred and reactions that did not spare even the relatives of the Muslims who were killed in the attack on the La Promenade des Anglais promenade.
But the election of Governor Hughes Motto in September, followed by the fallout from the Hamas attack on October 7 and the devastating Israeli response in the Gaza Strip, further aggravated the situation.
While Mayor Christian Estrosi erected the Israeli flag in front of the municipal building, the governor banned the organization of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, under the pretext that the district was among the first three to record the largest number of anti-Jewish acts.
The Administrative Court refused to ban the demonstrations, but the ban did not stop until January. Then, in February, Muto ordered the closure of a small Islamic bookstore, claiming it contained fundamentalist books. This decision was also overturned by the Administrative Court because those books are for sale in public libraries.
To give him an idea of her business, the bookstore director invited the governor to have tea at her shop, where she has been selling scarves, abayas, prayer rugs and books on spirituality for two decades. But she received no response.
Likewise, the lack of dialogue has dominated the crisis surrounding the Ibn Sina School, an Islamic institution not under contract with the Ministry of National Education that receives about 100 students, and which the governor ordered to close in March, at the request of the Ministry.
“Sense of injustice”
This school has maintained high-quality education and its students have excelled in the preparatory exams and then in the general secondary schools. But it did not meet the requirements of the anti-separatism law in terms of being transparent about the source of its funding.
Here too, the Administrative Court ruled in urgent proceedings that the errors mentioned in the institution’s accounts did not justify its closure. It is expected to issue its decision on the substance of the closure decision at the end of June.
Ironically, applications for the college have doubled and will create an additional semester in September. But those responsible feel “injustice” and “cruelty.” Its director, Idir Arab, says, “We have a small project operating in a neighborhood where everything is collapsing, so why should we close it?”
The school’s teachers belong to various religions and its entrants wear costumes and clothing from various cultures. The administration has been asking the Ministry of Education in vain for many years to sign a contract with it.
“They talk about separatism, but we are the ones suffering from this separatism,” Arab says regretfully, expressing a feeling of injustice that the mayor attacked it without reserve.
In this context, the mayor of Nice’s proposal to rent the spacious hall of the Nicene Palace for the end of the month of Ramadan, which was sent to religious associations less than 48 hours before Eid al-Fitr, was not feasible in April.
Likewise, there are only limited options for sacrifices for Eid Al-Kabir, which begins Sunday in France, after the court refused to allow this at the last location approved by the department. More than 600 sheep and 45 cattle were confiscated there at the end of May.
In comparison, five sites have been approved in the neighboring Var region. As a result, many families in Nice decided to send their sacrificial money abroad.
Officials did not answer AFP’s calls, whether due to time constraints or because of the elections.
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