The coexistence between radical Islam and republican and secular France is a cause of permanent tension in the European country most punished by jihadist terrorism in recent years. The latest incident was carried out by the Tunisian imam Mahjud Mahjubi, who preaches in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, a town near Avinyó. Known for his verbal excesses, Mahjubi warned the faithful gathered in the mosque that the tricolor flag (the French flag is white, blue and red) is “a satanic flag that has no value for Allah”.
As a result of the strong sentence about the flag and other previous attitudes of the Muslim cleric, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, has begun the procedures to expel him from French territory because he considers that he incited hatred. The Prosecutor’s Office of Nîmes has simultaneously opened a preliminary investigation for alleged apologia of terrorism.
Mahjubi, 52 years old, married to a French woman and father of five children, arrived from Tunisia in 1986. In statements to various media, the imam has completely denied that he wanted to offend the country where he lives and even assures that the phrase is taken out of context and that, in any case, it was a slip, an involuntary error because he does not fully master Molière’s language. “I’m not Voltaire or Victor Hugo, unfortunately”, he argued. “I didn’t study at the ENA (the elitist National School of Administration, breeding ground for presidents and ministers) or at the Sorbonne,” he added, with some irony.
The preacher threatened with expulsion recalled that, for years, he has defended republican secularism, including the right to blaspheme, and condemned the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty by a young extremist of Chechen origin. “I’m not a criminal”, he insisted, and denounced a persecution of the secret services against him, to the point of going into all the details of his life to incriminate him. According to him, his controversial words were directed at the Muslim world and in the context of football stadiums, so he urged young Maghreb fans not to fly national flags, without distinction. The problem is that he used the adjective “satanic” to apparently refer to the French flag and spoke of “all the tricolor flags that make us gangrenous, that give us headaches.”
According to the Arabic translation provided by the newspaper Le Figaro, in the sermon he was very critical of the hegemony of money (“our 12, 13 and 15-year-old children tell us about thighs that are worth 300 euros”) and the consumption of alcohol without any limit. He also railed against “fornication” when he spoke of young Muslims who, without having married, live with their girlfriends. “Do you accept that the future mother of your children is a fornicator?”, he asked himself, in a warning tone. The imam’s 40-minute speech included harsh criticism of Israel’s policy and the accusation of the media spreading lies about the Gaza conflict.
Even before the last episode, Mahjubi was in the spotlight of the French authorities and justice for his radicalism and for administrative irregularities in the management of a construction company in which his wife is listed as president. A Koranic school for young people was closed after it was discovered that the imam was using it to send potentially dangerous messages.
As usually happens in similar situations, this time there have also been critical voices from other imams who distance themselves and emphasize the moderation of authentic Islam. The grand imam of the Bordeaux mosque, Tareq Obru, stated that “this Islam [that Mahjubi preaches] has never existed; Islam recognizes the diversity of religions, of nations”. The vice-president of the French Council of Muslim Worship, Abdallah Zekri, estimated that the imam of Bagnols-sur-Cèze crossed “a red line”.
Despite the actions of the Minister of the Interior and the Prosecutor’s Office, the effective expulsion of the imam will not be easy at all, especially considering that his residence permit expires in 2029 and that his wife is French and has children french people Under current law, Mahjubi’s lawyers have many avenues to appeal the measure for years. However, his case can serve to fuel even more the debate on immigration and the danger of Islam before the European elections on June 9, in which the extreme right leads the polls.
