A French administrative court has given its backing to a six-month shutdown of a suburban Paris mosque, a ruling that has reignited long-simmering debates over the French state’s regulation of Islamic religious practice and worship in the country.
On Friday, the Montreuil Administrative Court turned down a legal request to suspend a closure order first issued in July for the Chanteloup mosque, located in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northeastern suburb of the French capital. The site will remain shuttered to worshippers through January of next year.
Human rights attorney Rafik Chekkat, who is representing the mosque in the legal battle, has raised sharp questions over whether imams across France still retain the basic freedom to recite core Islamic sacred texts in their own places of worship. “In France, can an imam still quote the Quran in the mosque where he preaches?” Chekkat asked in comments to reporters.
Chekkat explained that a significant portion of the authorities’ case against the mosque centered on the imam’s decision to quote seven passages from the Quran, alongside references to two foundational works of traditional Islamic scholarship: *The Garden of the Righteous* and *The Forty Hadiths*. Both texts are compiled from the work of Imam al-Nawawi, a 13th-century Syrian scholar universally recognized as one of the most influential theological thinkers in the history of the Muslim faith.
French officials also raised objections to portions of the mosque’s sermons that referenced “hell” and the “punishments of the grave” described as being reserved for “unbelievers” — a notable point of criticism, given that similar eschatological teachings are a standard part of religious preaching in Christian churches and other faith communities across the country.
In their ruling, the judges determined that Julien Charles, the prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis (the department where Aulnay-sous-Bois is located), had not “committed a serious and manifestly illegal infringement of either the freedom of worship or the freedom of expression”, clearing the way for the closure to stand.
Speaking to Agence France-Presse after the ruling was released, Chekkat expressed deep disappointment and surprise at the court’s decision, noting that key sections of the judgment run directly counter to fundamental guarantees of religious freedom. “We are very disappointed by the decision and very surprised by its content. We will obviously go before the Council of State,” he said, referring to France’s highest administrative court. Chekkat added that he believes the lower court’s ruling was driven in part by political alignment with the regional prefect, rather than strict legal principle. “I understand that the administrative judge did not want to contradict the prefect of Seine-Saint-Denis, now I think that before the Council of State we will have a little more chance, it will be a little more legal and a little less political,” he explained.
The Friday ruling comes amid years of steadily growing state pressure on Muslim religious institutions across France. By April 2022, French authorities had already shuttered 22 mosques over an 18-month period, with many of the closures relying on classified intelligence documents whose sources have never been made public.
Beyond mosque closures, the national government has also moved to dissolve a number of prominent Muslim organizations, including the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, a leading anti-discrimination group, and BarakaCity, a large Islamic charity. These actions have deepened widespread fears among French Muslim communities that the government is leveraging national security legislation to systematically restrict the right to religious belief for the country’s 5 million Muslim residents, the largest Muslim minority population in the European Union.