“Signing an agreement with one religion on the whole territory of the French Republic would be to give the same rights and duties to all religions,” Gilbert Roger, the Socialist Party Senator from the Seine-Saint-Denis department, a member of the Senate Committee, told Sputnik.
The signing of the agreement does not take account of the budgets of local governments and state bodies. However, the senators prefer this arrangement, so that French Islamic leaders had a chance to think about their organization in the context of strict adherence to national values.
“The 1905 law will be completely distorted. We believe that now everything is in balance. We do not want the 1905 law to be touched, and I will add that today the Muslim religion has never showed the world that it is able to organize itself like other religions, for example, Catholicism. So here we are, not entirely sure whether Imams have credibility in the eyes of the faithful, who go to this or any other mosque,” says Gilbert Roger.
“If an inventory will be conducted in all mosques for signing the agreement, I do not believe it will be too much, especially, when it might resolve the problem of the increased terrorist threat,” explains Tanoüarn.
From an ideological point of view, the French Republic is not ready to take such measures. It cannot invite such controversy or revise the exemplary principle of the separation of state and France's approach to religion, he says.
