France will no longer accept “seconded” imams, i.e. those sent by other countries, starting January 1, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Friday in a letter addressed to countries concerned by the topic. AFP, taken by Agerpres.

After April 1, 2024, seconded imams who are still in France will not be able to stay in that country “in this status,” Darmanin added.

Since the beginning of 2020, Emmanuel Macron has announced his decision to stop accepting approximately 300 imams sent by different countries (Algeria, Turkey, Morocco…) and to increase the number of imams who are studying in parallel in France.

“We are working to put an end to the practice of seconded imams in 2024,” French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said at the time.

There are no imams on secondment in France

Recalling this three-year “notice” to give mosques and states time to organize, Gerald Darmanin insisted on Friday’s calendar that the decision “will be effective from January 1, 2024.”

This specifically means that as of that date, France “will no longer accept new seconded imams.”

As for the imams already in France, their status will be changed: from April 1, a “specific framework” will be introduced that will allow the associations that manage the temples to recruit imams themselves, for which they will pay directly.

The aim is not to prevent foreign imams from preaching in France, but to ensure that none of them is paid by a foreign country of which he is an official or public figure.

Instead, according to Darmanin’s report, the arrival of the “Imams of Ramadan,” the roughly 300 singers and psalm reciters who come to France during the Muslim holy month, “is out of the question.”

At the same time, it is emphasized the need for “a growing number” of imams serving in France to “at least partially be trained in France.”

Determined to fight “Islamic separatism”, President Emmanuel Macron announced in February 2020 a series of measures against “foreign influence” on Islam in France, from seconded imams to mosque funding.

France is preparing for New Year’s Eve under the auspices of terrorist threats

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Friday that France would deploy a large number of police and military personnel at New Year’s events this weekend because of the “very high” terror threat facing the country.

France, like other European countries with large Muslim minorities, has faced a wave of anti-Semitic incidents since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and the harsh Israeli response that followed.

On October 13, French authorities declared a state of alert after a teacher was killed and two others were seriously injured in an Islamist knife attack on a high school in the northeastern city of Arras.

​One person was killed and two others were injured in another Islamist attack on December 3, after a man attacked several tourists in central Paris near the Eiffel Tower.

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