France tries to soften local style of Islam

As European governments crack down on radical imams as part of their battle against Islamic terrorism, they have laid bare a central problem for millions of their Muslim citizens: a lack of homegrown religious leaders to guide their integration into Western societies.

Overwhelmingly foreign, and sometimes speaking only Arabic, Europe's imams often have little understanding of their host countries, and their teachings run counter to modern European values and gender roles, say Muslim leaders and government officials. But there seems little chance of any change soon, they add.

"There is an abyss between the imams' vision of the world and that of young Muslims born here," says Dounia Bouzar, a member of the French Council for the Muslim Religion, a body established last year to lead the Muslim community.

France has taken the lead in a Europe-wide crackdown on radical clerics. French officials have deported two allegedly fundamentalist imams in recent weeks, and are threatening to expel three more. Italy expelled a Senegalese imam last November, and the British government is seeking to deport the Egyptian born radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, accusing him of supporting al Qaeda.

"Under the cover of religion, individuals present on our soil have been using extremist language and issuing calls for violence," French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said Saturday. "These favor the installation of terrorist movements. It is necessary therefore to oppose this together and by all available means."

Since the Madrid bombing in March, European authorities are paying new attention to the possibility that fundamentalist preachers are sheltering and supporting jihadist bombers.

French authorities announced with great fanfare two weeks ago that they were deporting Abdelkader Bouziane, an Algerian imam, after he defended wife-beating and stoning adulterous women in a magazine interview. They expelled him before he had a chance to appeal the ruling, which a court later overturned.

Officials told reporters that Mr. Bouziane had ties to terrorist groups, and that the police were keeping a close eye on about 30 mosques whose preachers were suspected of fundamentalist leanings.

The hasty expulsion drew criticism. "You cannot fight an antidemocratic movement by using its own methods," complained opposition Socialist Party spokesman Malik Boutih on French radio Tuesday.

Some Muslim leaders fear the government has made political use of the affair. "They are dramatizing it so as to show that all imams are foreign," complains Lhaj Thami Breze, president of the influential Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF). "They are preparing the ground to set up a government institute to train imams, and we are against such government interference."

An estimated 90 percent of imams in France are indeed foreign citizens, mostly from North Africa. Some "have not evolved in French society," says Mr. Breze, whose group is considered close to the Muslim Brotherhood. "Some adapt fast, but lots do not."

Dalil Boubaker, the head of Paris's Grand Mosque, is harsher. "There are 1,500 places of Islamic worship in France," he says. "Five hundred of them have proper imams. The other thousand are clowns."

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