A recent court ruling upholding the temporary closure of a small working-class mosque in northeastern Paris has reignited fierce national debate over France’s approach to countering radicalism, the practice of secularism, and systemic biases targeting the country’s Muslim community.
The case centers on Attaqwa Mosque, commonly called Chanteloup Mosque, nestled in a social housing complex in Aulnay-sous-Bois’s majority-immigrant southern neighborhood. Unlike traditional Islamic religious sites, the unassuming space blends into surrounding residential apartment blocks, with no minaret or dome, housing a 50-person prayer hall and offices for Acas, the local cultural association that manages it. Founded by local residents in the early 2010s as an informal prayer room, the site operated for more than a decade without pushback from housing providers or municipal officials.
In July, the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis ordered the mosque shuttered for six months, citing claims that imams at the site had disseminated content inciting violence, hatred and terrorism, both during sermons and on personal social media accounts. Earlier this month, the Montreuil Administrative Court rejected the mosque operator’s appeal to suspend the order, ruling that the temporary closure does not qualify as a clear, illegal violation of religious freedom. The court added that the ruling did not penalize citations of Islamic scripture, noting the order also relied on evidence of radicalized individuals frequenting the space, and that prefectural authorities had not interfered with core religious beliefs or violated France’s principle of state religious neutrality.
But local residents and legal representatives have pushed back sharply against the decision. For 78-year-old retired bus driver Salah, a regular worshipper who lives within walking distance of the mosque, the closure has stripped him of access to daily sunset prayers he has practiced for years. His poor health makes the longer trip to other mosques in Aulnay impossible, leaving him disconnected from the community space that anchored his daily routine. Twenty-year-old local resident Rayane, who also prays at Attaqwa, said the collective punishment of closing the entire mosque instead of prosecuting individual imams accused of wrongdoing is unfair. Critics argue the decision undermines both religious freedom and the secularism France claims to uphold, by punishing an entire community for the alleged actions of a few individuals.
Rafik Chekkat, the lawyer representing Acas (which has had all its assets frozen in the case), argues key portions of the court ruling run counter to fundamental religious freedom protections. He announced plans to appeal the decision to the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court, noting that authorities built part of their case against the mosque on imams’ citations of seven verses from the Quran and references to foundational works of Islamic tradition, including 13th-century Syrian scholar Imam al-Nawawi’s *The Garden of the Righteous* and *The Forty Hadiths* — works universally recognized as core to mainstream Islamic teaching. The defense also highlighted that the prefecture objected to sermons referencing hell and punishment for non-believers, despite identical theological teachings being common in Christian preaching across the country.
Veteran French lawyer Sefen Guez Guez, who has successfully won the suspension of three mosque closure orders throughout his career, says the ruling sets a dangerous legal precedent. He argues the court validated the prefecture’s practice of literally interpreting routine citations of core religious texts out of context to justify closing a place of worship. Guez Guez also raised procedural concerns, noting some of the sermons cited in the closure order date back to 2020, raising unanswered questions about how far back authorities can search for evidence to justify shutting down a religious site.
The Attaqwa case is far from an isolated incident, but rather the latest manifestation of a years-long shift toward stricter state control of Muslim worship in France that began early in Emmanuel Macron’s presidency, when he took office in 2017. In 2021, the French legislature passed the controversial anti-separatism law, formally titled the Law Reinforcing Respect for the Principles of the Republic, which was framed as a tool to root out Islamist radicalism. Critics have long argued the law stigmatizes France’s 5.7 million Muslim residents, the largest Muslim population in Europe, while eroding civil liberties. The legislation expanded the legal powers of regional prefects to order mosque closures, added new mandatory requirements for religious associations, broadened the justifications for closing religious sites, and created a systematic system of state oversight — making closures far more frequent and easier to administer.
Prominent scholars of religion warn this shift marks a fundamental change to French secularism. In his 2025 book *Governing Islam in France*, CNRS senior researcher and religion specialist Franck Fregosi argues that growing numbers of mosque closures are evidence of an authoritarian turn in France’s long-standing practice of laïcité, or secularism. Fregosi notes the state’s increasingly heavy interference in the internal governance of mosques, including mandatory vetting of imams and worshippers, fits into a centuries-long pattern of state efforts to control and monitor Muslim worship that dates back to France’s colonial era in North Africa.
In 2024, then-Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin introduced a new official registration system for imams working in France, intended to end the long-standing practice of foreign governments sending clerics to serve French mosques. The stated goal was to block foreign influence and radical ideological currents, allowing imams already working in the country to stay if they were hired by a local religious association and completed mandatory civic training, including coursework on French secularism. But even compliant imams have faced barriers: an Algerian imam hired by Nîmes’ Grand Mosque who completed all required requirements was still denied a residence permit by the prefecture and forced to return to Algeria, according to mosque rector Abdallah Zekri.
Zekri, who also chairs the French Observatory Against Islamophobia and serves as vice president of the French Council of Muslim Worship (CFCM), the national representative body for French Muslims, argues growing numbers of mosque closures reflect a rising climate of anti-Muslim bias across the country. “When it’s not for radicalisation, mosques are closed under the pretext of non-compliance with urban planning regulations,” he explained, adding that Muslim associations face growing barriers to securing state approval to purchase land for new mosque construction. Guez Guez confirmed this pattern, noting that most closure requests are rooted in political considerations, with municipalities often using minor violations of fire safety or zoning rules as a pretext to shut down Muslim sites.
Official French Interior Ministry data records only 12 places of worship, almost all mosques, that have been administratively closed for reasons related to radicalization since 2017. But independent journalistic investigations and advocacy group data show the actual number of closed mosques is far higher, with dozens more shut down for technical or regulatory violations. Between 2021 and 2022 alone, roughly 20 mosques were closed as part of a nationwide campaign of expanded administrative inspections. French Muslim advocacy group Trouve Ta Mosquée estimates that 89 mosques have been closed, temporarily or permanently, since 2017, including sites currently facing ongoing investigations.
Zekri also noted that imams face growing punishment for discussing political topics, with comments on the Israeli military campaign in Gaza routinely mislabeled as hate speech, leading to retaliatory action. In a high-profile 2025 case, Abdourahmane Ridouane, president of a mosque near Bordeaux, was initially sentenced to four months suspended prison and a two-year ban from France on charges of apologizing for terrorism after he denounced Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories. He was ultimately acquitted by the Paris Court of Appeal later that year.
Efforts to tighten state oversight of Muslim worship continue to move forward through the French legislature. In May 2025, the French Senate adopted a bill introduced by Senator and former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, following a June 2024 report on alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in French religious institutions. The bill would further expand prefects’ power to order mosque closures by broadening the legal definition of justifications for closure and allowing for preventive shutdowns before any disturbance of public order has occurred — a change that critics warn would grant state officials far more discretionary power to target sites. A second bill introduced in January 2025 by right-wing Les Républicains lawmakers would require prefectural approval for all new construction or expansion of places of worship, replacing the previous system where the prefect only issued a non-binding advisory opinion. Neither bill has been passed into law as of yet.
