Introduction

On 25 February 2015, one-and-a-half months after the 7 and 9 January 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris led by three French Muslim young adults, the French Minister of Internal Affairs, Bernard Cazeneuve, chose to visit the mosques of Bordeaux and Cenon in South-Western France to publicly announce the creation of a ‘National Dialogue Commission with French Islam’ (Instance nationale de dialogue avec l’islam de France). This commission gathered for the first time on 15 June 2015, and aims to supplement the work of the existing Conseil français du culte musulman (CFCM), a representative body of the main Islamic federations in France, created in 2003, by dialoguing more broadly with French Muslims in order to tackle pressing issues such as imam training, countering islamophobia and radicalism, searching for solutions to the lack of mosques in certain parts of the country, or facilitating the organization of religious feasts. This was a new turn for France. By making such an important announcement in those particular mosques, the French Minister of Internal Affairs might have been suggesting that the local clergy there are good examples of Republic-compliant imams.

A renowned imam leads the first mosque, which was visited by Minister Bernard Cazeneuve in Bordeaux. For almost a quarter century, Tareq Oubrou has been acting as El Huda Mosque's main imam and rector. Its representatives commonly refer to it as the ‘Mosque of Bordeaux’ to foster its local rooting and facilitate its symbolic appropriation by the non-Muslim neighbourhood.