PARIS, 26 December 2002 — Pierre Bedier, a high-level official of the French Justice Ministry and a political crony of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, says that less than one week after creation of a unified representative organization for French Muslim — the Conseil francais du culte musulman (CFCM) — France should now turn its attention to imposing "French-educated and French-speaking" imams.
Bedier, who is the mayor of Mantes-la-Jolie, an important Muslim population center in the Paris region, as well as state secretary for justice, says that with creation of the CFCM, "there should henceforth no longer exist the idea of Islam as a foreign entity existing in France, rather there should now be an Islam of France, that is quintessentially French."
Developing his idea on the French radio network Europe 1, Bedier noted that "the imams of French Islam should now be French, and be able to express themselves in French, something which is a necessary precondition to a proper integration of Islam in France."
Bedier also said that France should revise its rules on the public financing of religious institutions "so that the French government might now be allowed to use public funds to set up a special school."
