Former minister Olivier Klein was reappointed at the end of July to head the interministerial delegation for the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hatred (Dilcrah). A strategic position, placed under the direct authority of the Prime Minister. The former mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois is now responsible for guiding, managing and applying government policy in the fight against discrimination. But the noisy positions of the new delegate call into question the political coherence of the government on these questions…
The elected official has in fact regularly appeared alongside networks of religious people and decolonial activists, all resolutely committed against secularism. “It is undoubtedly more the result of a general casualness than of a deliberate change of line”, philosophizes a senior civil servant, a good connoisseur of these circles. However, the positions defended by Olivier Klein on these subjects are a thousand miles from the secular and universalist line (again) defended by the government.
When he was mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, Olivier Klein publicly got involved in helping Muslim religious associations obtain premises. In 2018, it granted a grant of 270,000 euros for the construction of the Bilal mosque, which is permitted by law under cultural activity. “For me, secularism must allow everyone to live their worship in good conditions,” he explains to Le Point. This subsidy was voted by the municipal council and subject to a legality check. This is not the only place of worship to benefit from it, the church of Clichy-sous-Bois received several million euros for its renovation. »
Olivier Klein has also never failed to relay the victim discourse disseminated by numerous associations from the Brotherhood movement. Thus the UAM93, a federation of local Muslim associations, welcomed the presence of Olivier Klein at the “demonstration against Islamophobia” on November 10, 2019, an unlikely alliance of notorious political Islam activists and political leaders far left (the former seeking to advance their religious agenda, the latter their electoral agenda). “The UAM93 is a local association, everyone worked with it in Seine-Saint-Denis,” defends Olivier Klein.
The elected official was one of the rare socialists to participate in this demonstration “against Islamophobia” organized at the call of Madjid Messaoudene (then elected from Saint-Denis and indigenous activist), the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), the Adama Committee, the Collective against Islamophobia in France (close to the Muslim Brotherhood, since dissolved), the National Union of Students of France (Unef) and the activist (La France insoumise) Taha Bouhafs. “I did not ask permission to come, but all I know is that, if we are not next to our fellow citizens of the Muslim faith today, we are making a mistake,” declared then, lyrical, the one who has just taken the head of the Dilcrah. To Le Point, he now claims to have “left very early” the procession, after seeing who “was taking part”. Time for a few selfies with the demonstrators… Does he still denounce “Islamophobia”? “I prefer the term anti-Muslim acts,” replies the former mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois.
We also note a proven proximity of Olivier Klein, a man of the left, with Turkish nationalist and Islamist organizations. We also saw him at religious events (breaking the fast during Ramadan), jointly organized by Ditib (Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs Abroad) and the UID (formerly UETD), a structure of community cooperation which did not hesitate, as Le Point reported at the time, to play electoral agents, intelligence agents and henchmen of the Turkish president on French soil during his great anti-purge -gulenist in 2016. Would he sit at their table again as Dilcrah boss? “My new responsibilities call for another form of neutrality,” he says, aware that his role requires him to review his positions.
