The Tunisian imam of the Bagnols-sur-Cèze (Gard) mosque, Mahjoub Mahjoubi, was arrested on Thursday February 22 with a view to his expulsion, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from a source close to the matter . Samir Hamroun, his lawyer, announced that he wanted to contest the expulsion order on BFM-TV.
The imam must be placed in a detention center in the Paris region, according to information from Mr. Hamroun. “Transportation is underway,” he said. This arrest takes place as part of a preliminary investigation for advocating terrorism opened after the broadcast of a video in which the imam had notably qualified the “tricolor flag” – without specifying whether it was the French flag – of “satanic flag” that has “no value with Allah.”
In the process, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, requested his expulsion. “Instructions were given to issue a ministerial expulsion order against this radical “imam” with unacceptable remarks and he was the subject of a home visit and an arrest,” Mr. Darmanin confirmed on Thursday, on his X account.
Mr. Mahjoubi’s lawyer expressed the wish to “contest this procedure” before the Paris administrative court. “This appeal will aim to suspend the decision of the Minister of the Interior and to send it back [for a study on the merits] which will be [studied] in several months,” continued Mr. Hamroun. Mr. Mahjoubi’s defender wants to “demonstrate that there is no urgency to expel Mr. Mahjoubi and that he is given time to remain in France to explain the merits of the remarks with which he is accused “.
Mahjoub Mahjoubi defends himself by referring to “a slip of the tongue”
In a longer version of Mr. Mahjoubi’s sermon, also broadcast on social networks, the imam evokes the arrival of the mahdi, the messenger of God who will unite all Muslims at the end of time: “He will self-proclaim and then all governors in all governances will fall. (…) We will no longer have all these tricolor flags which plague us, which give us headaches, which have no value with Allah; the only value they have is satanic value. See all these flags we have in the matches. (…) These are satanic flags that are worthless. Those who imposed them are simply so that we hate each other, that we do not love each other, that we put hatred in our hearts. »
“We are dealing with content that fundamentally calls into question our values,” said Tuesday on Franceinfo the prefect of Gard, Jérôme Bonet, for whom “yes, obviously, there is a call for hatred.” “I was in no way talking about the French flag,” Mahjoub Mahjoubi defended himself at the start of the week on France Bleu Gard Lozère, explaining that he was denouncing the rivalries between supporters of Maghreb countries during the recent Coupe d Africa of Nations (CAN): “I’m talking about stadiums and all these flags that are raised in stadiums and which divide Muslims. » The imam explained that he had made “a slip of the tongue in [his] speech”, believing that he was not “Voltaire nor Victor Hugo”.
However, for Mr. Bonet, “there are several dozen minutes of sermons which have been analyzed and which contain many things other than this pseudo-lapse”. The prefect of Gard affirmed on Tuesday that Mr. Mahjoubi’s sermon contains “words which do not only concern the question of the flag, which also concern the place of women, of the Jewish people, whom he designates as a enemy “.
