(National-UAE) A new French Muslim association is pressing ahead with plans to finance the training and payment of imams despite silence from President Emmanuel Macron on his long-promised initiative for the organisation of Islam in France.
Analysts believe the president shelved his intervention because of the crisis provoked by the Gilets Jaunes, or yellow vest, protests that disrupted the country for seven months.
Even now, when Mr Macron appears to have worn down the protesters, there is no word from the Elysee Palace on when — or indeed whether — he will finally reveal his proposals.
The Muslim Association for a French Islam was launched in January by Hakim El Karoui, a French-Tunisian former banker, now an author and a nephew of a former Tunisian prime minister, Hamed Karoui. Its ambitious twin aims are to unite French Muslims where other supposedly representative bodies have failed and combat extremism.
