The highest administrative court sees nothing wrong with it
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Seized in summary proceedings, the Council of State rendered its decision this Friday concerning the expulsion of imam Mahjoub Mahjoubi to Tunisia, and confirmed the decision recorded in the ministerial expulsion order, according to Gérald Darmanin. The Minister of the Interior welcomed this decision on from Place Beauvau.
Also readMahjoub Mahjoubi affair: how the imam could be expelled “less than 12 hours after his arrest”
The imam, who officiated in Bagnols-sur-Cèze (Gard) before his arrest and expulsion on February 23, is accused of having uttered calls for hatred in his sermons, targeting in particular women and Jews, or even for having made comments considered anti-France.
“Satanic Flag”
The Paris administrative court had already validated his expulsion on March 4 after examining a first request filed by the imam. A court decision then welcomed by the Minister of the Interior, who denounced an “imam who clearly incites separatism”. Mahjoub Mahjoubi's lawyer, Me Samir Hamroun, then announced his intention to appeal the administrative court's decision to the Council of State.
Living in France since the mid-1980s, married and father of five children, the imam was in the crosshairs of the Minister of the Interior, who had requested the withdrawal of his residence permit a few days before his expulsion. In particular, the broadcast of a video in which Mahjoub Mahjoubi qualified the “tricolor flag” – without specifying whether it was the French flag – as a “satanic flag” which would have “no value with Allah (God in Arabic).”