While there are signs of hope in this commune west of Paris, a radical preacher’s influence lingers.
.... A minority of French Muslims wish to lead lives divorced from secular western society. This desire became so pronounced in Ecquevilly, under the influence of a charismatic preacher who was born and grew up there, that two reporters from the Catholic daily newspaper, La Croix, recently spent three weeks there observing everyday life.
Their powerful report, its title roughly translating as "Salafism in Daily Life", stretched to several pages and had a profound impact on residents, officials and community leaders.
Until the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, Ecquevilly had a thriving mosque housed on the ground floor beneath a kindergarten near the imposing town hall depicted as a chateau in a film based on the comic character Tintin.
People travelled from as far as Belgium for Friday prayers, drawn by the persuasive imam Youssef Bounouader, who had limited Islamic scholarship but restyled himself Abou Anas after visits to Yemen and Syria and adopted a strict practice of Islam. Music, dancing and television were discouraged, as was contact with Christians and Jews.
A year after the ISIS murders that left 130 dead across the capital on November 13 2015, growing concern about the mosque led the French authorities to use emergency powers to force its closure. [The National] Read more
