Accused of having uttered calls for hatred in sermons targeting women, Jews or a “rotten” French society, the Tunisian imam of the Bagnols-sur-Cèze (Gard) mosque Mahjoub Mahjoubi was arrested Thursday in his home and deported to Tunisia a few hours later.
“We will not let anything go”
In a message posted on X (formerly Twitter), the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin announced his effective expulsion “less than 12 hours after his arrest”. “It is the demonstration that the immigration law, without which such a rapid expulsion would not have been possible, makes France stronger”, he added, “we will not let anything go”. Living in France since the mid-1980s, father of four children, Mahjoub Mahjoubi was “the subject of a home visit and an arrest”, had specified earlier during the day on X Gérald Darmanin, who had demanded on Sunday withdrawal of your residence permit.
The radical “Imam” Mahjoub Mahjoubi has just been expelled from the national territory, less than 12 hours after his arrest.
This is the demonstration that the Immigration law, without which such a rapid expulsion would not have been possible, makes France stronger. We don’t…— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) February 22, 2024
The minister once again castigated a “radical ‘imam’ with unacceptable remarks” on Thursday. Arrested on the basis of a ministerial expulsion order, in the presence of his children and his wife, according to his lawyer Samir Hamroun, he was transferred to an administrative detention center (CRA) in the Paris region. Mahjoub Mahjoubi became known a few days ago for a video circulating on social networks in which he described the “tricolor flag” – without specifying whether it was the French flag – as a “satanic flag” which does not would have “no value with Allah”.
He defended himself on Monday by evoking a “slip of the tongue”, explaining that he was in reality denouncing the rivalries between supporters of Maghreb countries during the recent African Football Cup of Nations. The sermons analyzed “contain many things other than this pseudo-lapse”, replied the prefect of Gard Jérôme Bonet on Franceinfo on Tuesday. If we are to believe the expulsion order, the remarks made against the Tunisian imam cover a much broader field than the debate around the flag.
“Retrograde and violent conception”
In sermons on February 2, 9 and 16 “on the warning signs of the End of Times”, Mahjoub Mahjoubi “conveyed a literal, retrograde, intolerant and violent conception of Islam, likely to encourage behavior contrary to the values of the Republic, discrimination against women, identity withdrawal, tensions with the Jewish community and jihadist radicalization”, notes the decree consulted by AFP.
The French authorities also accuse the imam of “hateful and discriminatory remarks against non-Muslims and French society” which he allegedly described as “belligerent and rotten”. Still according to the ministerial decree, the imam designated in front of his faithful “the Jewish people as an enemy”. He called for “the destruction of Western society deemed decadent” and “praised Sharia law, the only legitimate and just law in his eyes”, according to the same source.
On February 2, he deplored that “mosques no longer produce fighters as in the time of the prophet.” In addition to initiating the expulsion procedure, Gérald Darmanin had asked the prefect to report these comments to the courts. Nîmes prosecutor Cécile Gensac announced on Monday that she had opened a preliminary investigation for “apology of terrorism”. Mahjoub Mahjoubi’s lawyer, Samir Hamroun, told AFP on Thursday that he was going to contest his expulsion: “for the summary motion, it is the judge of freedoms and detention of the Meaux court who has jurisdiction “.
“As for the bottom line, ‘He said this, he didn’t say that…’, it will be before the Paris administrative court,” added the lawyer, according to whom his client is “stunned” and “upset” . Before his arrest, the imam of Bagnols-sur-Cèze had claimed to support the values of the Republic and secularism. “Of course, I defended Samuel Paty (the professor murdered in 2020 by a young jihadist). I was in the march for Charlie Hebdo,” he said.