Sarkozy party’s ‘Islam meeting’ sparks criticism

Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing opposition party holds an internal meeting Thursday on the “question of Islam” in France, which draws criticism from Muslim groups and some members of the party for “stigmatizing” the religion.

The former French president’s party, recently rebranded “The Republicans,” debates “the place of religion” in secular France and more specifically “Islam in France.”

One month after the January attacks in Paris that killed 17, Sarkozy said: “The question is not to know what the Republic can do for Islam, but what Islam can do to become the Islam of France.”

France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim community and also the continent’s biggest Jewish community but is officially secular.

Sarkozy insists on the eve of the closed-door meeting that “one shouldn’t run away from debates.”

“A country is like a family. You have to talk, you have to work things through,” he says.

But Muslim groups said they would not be present at the meeting.

“We can’t participate in an initiative like this that stigmatizes Muslims,” says Abdallah Zekri from the French Muslim Council (CFCM).

The organization had “come under pressure to attend but will not be going,” Zekri tells AFP.

It later emerged that four members of the group did in fact attend, sparking an angry response from Zekri.

— AFP