20 October 2022; MEMO: French President, Emmanuel Macron, has toured the Grand Mosque of Paris yesterday to mark 100 years of its founding.
Macron was greeted by the Mosque's rector, Chems-Eddine Hafiz, before inspecting an exhibition about the mosque's history. Hafiz was awarded with the insignia of the Legion of Honour by Macron, France's highest civilian honour.
The ceremony was also attended by Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, and Army Minister, Sebastien Lecornu. Macron also unveiled a plaque marking France's "recognition" of the sacrifices made by Muslim soldiers during World War 1.
The Grand Mosque is the oldest mosque in Metropolitan France and one of the largest in the country. It was inaugurated during the interwar years in the 1920s to honour the 70,000 Muslims who died fighting for France in the war.
On 22 October 1922, Morocco's Sultan Moulay Youssef, along with then-French President, Gaston Doumergue, laid the mosque's first foundation stone. The mosque is notable for having once served as a refuge for partisans and Jews, who were given documents identifying them as Muslims during the Nazi occupation of France.
The mosque was constructed according to traditional Moorish design and was built by 450 North African craftsmen and is decorated with wooden carvings and Zellige mosaics brought from Morocco.
Despite the mosque's Moroccan links, it has been suggested that the French government has sought to "erase" the institution's Moroccan heritage in favour of attributing its construction to Algeria in an attempt to strengthen Franco-Algerian relations, most recently, during the country's current energy crisis. On Monday, Macron described the 1961 Paris Massacre of dozens of peaceful Algerian demonstrators as "unjustified", but stopped short of apologising on the 61st anniversary of the infamous incident.
