Tue 20 October 2020:
French authorities said Tuesday they would close a Paris mosque as part of a clampdown on following the beheading of a teacher who had shown his pupils a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed.
The interior ministry said the mosque in Pantin, which has some 1,500 worshippers, would be shut on Wednesday night for six months.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who vowed Monday there would be “not a minute’s respite for enemies of the Republic,” had asked regional authorities to carry out the mosque closure.
And on Monday, police launched a series of raids targeting Islamist networks.
On Tuesday, the head of the Pantin mosque, M’hammed Henniche, said he had shared the video not to “validate” the complaint about the cartoon, but out of concern for Muslim children being singled out in class.
One Pantin resident, who gave her name as Maya and said her husband prayed at the mosque, called the closure “sad for our community.”
The political temperature is also rising, with French President Emmanuel Macron promising that “fear is about to change sides” in a new anti-Islamist campaign.
Far-right National Rally leader Marine Le Pen — likely to face Macron in a 2022 presidential election — has called for “wartime legislation” and an immediate moratorium on immigration.
