FRENCH MUSLIM LEADER DESCRIBES BLEAK OUTLOOK FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 002314

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/03/2016
TAGS: KISL PTER PINR SOCI MO FR
SUBJECT: FRENCH MUSLIM LEADER DESCRIBES BLEAK OUTLOOK FOR
SUBURBAN YOUTH, HAILS U.S. INTEGRATION MODEL (C-DI5-01478)

REF: A. 05 PARIS 4664

B. EMBASSY SIPRNET PARIS POINTS FOR MARCH 28 2006

C. EMBASSY SIPRNET PARIS POINTS FOR MARCH 22 2006

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Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt, reasons
1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: National Federation of French Muslims (FNMF)
president Mohammed Bechari provided a frank assessment of the
current state of French Muslim communities and institutions
to Poloffs March 31. Bechari described disaffected, suburban
Muslim youth in the throes of an identity crisis, and facing
a bleak choice between criminality and radical Islam. These
youth largely reject community institutions, including the
French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM). Bechari disputed
the notion of a single French Muslim community, and described
French Muslims as affiliated more along lines of religious
interpretation rather than country of origin. He decried the
lack of representation of French Muslims within French
politics and viewed quotas as the means to redress this
imbalance. He offered mixed praise for U.S. democratization
efforts in the Middle East, and described his plans to found
a new Islamic institute/imam training center in Lille, for
which he is seeking foreign financing, including from the
U.S. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Poloffs and POL FSN met with FMNF president Mohammed
Bechari March 31, in the wake of press reports (ref B) of
recurring divisions within the FMNF and the CFCM, the GoF's
official interlocutor on Muslim religious issues. (Comment:
The FMNF is the largest component group within the CFCM, and
often portrays itself as the representative of Moroccan
Muslims in France, though it espouses a conservative
interpretation of Islam perhaps not representative of
France's generally non-practicing Muslim population. The
Moroccan government is believed to have a close and
influential relationship with the FMNF, and Bechari in
particular. End comment.)

Youth in Suburbs: Not Your Father's Islam
--------------

3. (C) According to Bechari, young Muslims in France are
generally more religious than their parents, but in very
different ways. The French integration model, with its
emphasis on assimilation into the dominant culture, creates
identity crises for the children of immigrants, that result
in the rejection of all institutions, from the state to
organized religion. This rejection of institutions, when
combined with a lack of educational opportunities and youth
unemployment rates as high as 45 percent in some suburbs,
fosters an environment ripe for radical influences. With no
hope for the future, Bechari argued, the young men in
suburban housing projects often face a bleak choice between a
life of crime and one of radical Islam. Organizations such
as the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM),have little
credibility or influence on the street due to their
affiliation with the state. Bechari concluded that the GoF,
and Interior Minister Sarkozy in particular, had mistakenly
hoped that the suburban youth problem could be
"sub-contracted" to the CFCM.


4. (C) Bechari added that French Muslim youth in the suburbs
were exposed to a wholly negative image of the U.S., due to
the combined influences of the extreme-left and radical
Islam, which painted the U.S. as a hegemonic power hostile to
Muslims. Bechari urged the USG to make greater efforts to
reach out to French Muslim youth in the suburbs, much like
the U.S. had expanded outreach in the Islamic world; he
concluded that the U.S. integration model should be applied
to the French suburbs, and that his own views of the U.S.,
once quite critical and focused on U.S. foreign policy in the
Middle East, had evolved considerably towards embracing the
U.S. concept of diversity and affirmative action. Repeating
a line we have heard from many other French Muslim contacts,
Bechari said that France was far from the point at which it
could accept as French someone named Mohammed, regardless of
how many generations his family had been in country. The
same could not be said of the U.S., where one could retain
one's ethnic identity without calling into question one's
"American" identity.

Not One, but Many Communities
--------------


5. (C) Bechari dismissed the notion of a single Muslim
community in France, which he said simply does not exist.
Instead, he described French Muslims as aligned on lines of
religious practice, for instance the "Islam des jeunes" (of
youth),fundmentalist "Tabligh" school, or "family Islam,"
where one's Islamic identity consisted of cultural traditions
conveyed by parents. Bechari did not view French Muslims as

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aligned along nationalistic lines, noting that the question
of one's country of origin (i.e. Morocco, Algeria, etc.)
mattered only to the older generations who first immigrated
to France. He similarly downplayed the ability of countries
of origins, such as Algeria, Morocco, or Turkey, to have
significant influence among French Muslims.

Lack of Political Will to Embrace Minority Candidates
-------------- --------------


6. (C) Bechari decried the lack of political representation
of French Muslims at the local and national level, and
criticized the lackluster efforts of French political parties
on the left and right to more actively involve minorities.
"We have no mayors, no deputies," Bechari argued, concluding
that the presence of two French female Senators of Muslim
origin offered little hope, since the French Senate was of
far less importance than the directly-elected National
Assembly. He added that, in comparison to Belguim and the
UK, the lack of French Muslim elected officials was an
embarrassment. Although Bechari had initially opposed the
idea of "American quotas," (referring to commonly held
beliefs in France about U.S. affirmative action),he now
believed they were needed to open the door for minorities in
the French political system. Bechari indicated that voter
registration efforts were necessary to increase political
clout, and that there existed 3 million potential voters of
North African origin.

Muslim Voting Trends
--------------


7. (C) Contrary to the common assumption that Muslim voters
tend to be Socialist Party supporters, Bechari said that many
had backed Chirac in the first round of the 2002 presidential
election, specifically voting against Jospin because of his
perceived sympathy towards Israel. He asserted that a small
minority of French Muslims -- harkis (Algerians who sided
with the French during the Algerian war for independence) --
tended to vote for the extreme-right National Front. In the
recent EU elections, however, sentiment had swung against the
center-right UMP party, with nearly 90 percent of Muslim
voters siding with left-leaning parties in retaliation
against the center-right's support of the headscarf law.
Bechari believed that Nicolas Sarkozy had lost much of the
support within the Muslim community that he once enjoyed,
primarily because of his proposed immigration reforms and his
inflammatory remarks during the October/November civil unrest
in the suburbs. "The Sarko of 2006 is not the Sarko of
2003," he remarked, referring to Sarkozy's first term as
Interior Minister during which he oversaw the creation of the
CFCM.


8. (C) The political left, Bechari commented, was fractured,
with people waiting for a clear candidate to emerge. Fabius
was not a suitable candidate, he judged, and Segolene Royal
lacked gravitas. Bechari thought Dominique Strass-Kahn could
be appealing if partnered with former Social Cohesion
Minister Martine Aubry. He thought Chirac remained the
sympathetic favorite for most French Muslims, due to the
continued perception that Chirac is "pro-Arab," and despite
Chirac's many failures on the domestic front. Personally,
Bechari confided, he had a soft spot for Prime Minister
Villepin, with whom he had worked closely to secure the
release of the two French journalists held in Iraq when
Villepin was the Interior Minister.

U.S. in Middle East: Yes to Democratization, Except in Iraq
-------------- --------------


9. (C) Bechari urged the U.S. to continue democratization
efforts in the Middle East, and stressed the need to work
together to separate moderate Islamists from radical
extremists. Democracy would ultimately provide stability in
the Middle East, he reasoned, without which jhihadism would
continue to rise. Bechari viewed the U.S.-led liberation of
Iraq, however, in highly negative terms. Excusing himself in
advance for his candor, he described USG efforts as creating
a "government of mullahs" in Iraq while forging unity between
the extreme left and radical Islamists in Europe. He also
commented that Saddam Hussein was currently winning the media
war in Iraq with his grandstanding performances at his trial.
Poloff questioned Bechari's mischaracterization of Iraq's
democratically elected leadership, which was seeking to form
a government of national unity responsive to all Iraqis,
including Sunnis. Poloff also reminded Bechari of the
disastrous humanitarian toll of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Bechari replied that he was no fan of Saddam, but that
opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq had, in his view,
replaced the Palestinian question as the most important
foreign policy issue to many French Muslim youth.

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CFCM Troubles and New Institute for Islam
--------------


10. (C) Bechari spoke little of the CFCM, an organization
of which he is a vice president. When he finally did address
the CFCM, he dismissed it as irrelevant. "The CFCM is not a
religious institution," Bechari stated, "only the
administrator of a religion." Bechari indicated that he was
instead focusing his efforts on a recently announced
institute and research center to be founded in Lille to focus
on Islam and Islamism (ref C). One of the primary goals of
the institute will be to deal with the many problems facing
French imams, specifically lack of French-born or even
French-speaking imams, and continuity of message. Bechari
said that only eight of 860 imams operating in France were
French, so the institute will teach French language and
civics as well as provide theological training. Sarkozy was
not supportive of the idea, Bechari noted, because the state
was not involved. Bechari added that he would soon travel to
Morocco and Egypt to meet with religious authorities,
including Al Azhar university, to seek funding for his Lille
institute. He was unabashed in asking if U.S. financial
support was available for programs such as the institute in
Lille. He lamented the fact that USG Muslim outreach funds
were focused in the Middle East, when there was also a war to
wage for Muslim hearts and minds in Europe.

Comment:
--------------


11. (C) Bechari is currently in a power struggle within his
FNMF organization, and his departure from the CFCM to
concentrate on the new institute in Lille may be due more to
political pressure within the CFCM than his own
disillusionment with the organization. Bechari's criticism
of Sarkozy at several points during the conversation was
notable, especially since he had expressed support for the
Interior Minister in previous meetings. This power struggle,
and Bechari's rumored imminent departure from the CFCM and
FMNF may also explain in part his new-found openness towards
the U.S. We should also point out that although Bechari
cautioned against considering the French Muslim community as
a single entity, throughout the discussion he made sweeping
generalizations about Muslim voting patterns and French
Muslim youth, when in fact he appeared to be referring to a
specific subset of disaffected, crime-prone young males in
the French suburbs, not representative of French Muslims as a
whole. That said, and despite Bechari's criticisms of USG
policy in Iraq, we viewed him as forthcoming on the bleak
outlook facing young Muslim males in the French suburbs,
sincere in his appreciation of the U.S. approach to
immigrants and democratization, and worthy of further USG
attention. End comment.




Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm

Stapleton