France will finally expel the imam Hassan Iquoussen for hate speech. The decision was made by the highest administrative court in the country, the Council of State, this Tuesday afternoon after a judicial journey in which Parisian magistrates they had blocked his expulsion at the beginning of August issued days before by the Gallic Ministry of the Interior. Precisely, the head of Interior of Macron, Gerald Darmanindid not hide his satisfaction reacting to the decision a few minutes after meeting through his Twitter account where he has indicated that this represents “a great victory for the Republic”.
Interior had ordered said expulsion in July for a “particularly virulent anti-Semitic speech” and for some sermons that called for the “submission” of women to men.
The Conseil d’Etat validates the expulsion of M. Iquioussen who has and spread notamment des propos antisémites et contraires à l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes. C’est une grande victory pour la République. I will be expelled from the national territory.
— Gérald DARMANIN (@GDarmanin) August 30, 2022
Hassan Iquoussen, 58, was born in France but has Moroccan nationality, and had a strong influence reaching tens of thousands of subscribers through his YouTube and Facebook accounts from his home in northern France. His lawyers had initially successfully petitioned the Paris court to block the deportation order, arguing that he would create a “disproportionate damage” to his “private and family life”.
Imam Hassan Iquioussen would have renounced French nationality at the age of 16. He affirms, on the contrary, that it was his father who had denied him that right, which he would have asked for several times, without success. His refusal to renew his residence permit would have further complicated his situation.
According to what a lawyer from the Ministry of the Interior said last week in the Council of State, Iquioussen “has spread for years insidious ideas that are nothing less than an incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence”.
The Macron government had insisted this summer that Iquioussen maintained openly anti-Semitic, xenophobic, homophobic and anti-women postulates. Darmanin himself had ruled that “This individual has nothing to do in the national territory”. The point had also generated a political controversy with the left. Darmanin criticized at the end of July a deputy from the leftist La Francia Insumisa who defended the imam, something he blamed on “the intellectual decomposition of the extreme left”.
The affected had filed a urgent appeal before the European Court of Human Rightsin Strasbourg, upon learning of the decision of the French Interior at the end of July arguing that the expulsion violates four articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, among them those that guarantee the right to freedom of conscience and religion, the right to freedom of expression and a private and family life. Nevertheless, the Court refused to adopt precautionary measures since it recalled that these are taken when there is a risk of “irreparable damage”something that I did not perceive in this case.
During the last twelve months, the French Ministry of the Interior has ordered the expulsion of several hundred foreigners in an irregular situation, has ordered the closure of some twenty mosques and the expulsion of a dozen imams. The expulsion of the imam Iquioussen is inscribed in that wake, when the Government of Macron proposes pass new crackdowns on foreign criminals and separatist Islam. In France there are more than 2,200 mosques and Muslim places of worship. More than a hundred, financed by Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, among other Muslim countries, are suspected of illegal activities.
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