Sarkozy wants Al Qaradawi to stay away from France

Manama: French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday that he opposed the visit by Yousuf Al Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, to France.

“I told the Emir of Qatar personally that this gentleman was not welcome on the territories of the French republic,” Sarkozy said during a France Info radio talk on his candidacy for the presidential elections.

Qatar-based Al Qaradawi holds a diplomatic passport and he is scheduled to visit France in early April in response to an invitation by the Union of Islamic Organizations in France.

However, Henri Guaino, a close aide to President Sarkozy, on Saturday said that Al Qaradawi would be denied entry in France and that measures would be taken to deny him entry if he accepted the invitation.

“The French government does not want any extremist preachers entering its territory,” Guaino, a special advisor and speechwriter to Sarkozy, said. “He does not require a visa because he holds a diplomatic passport; however, the government will take all necessary measures so that he cannot come to France. In fact, he will not be the only one and there will be many more extremists who will be barred from the French territory after the killings in Toulouse,” he said.

Sarkozy, a former interior minister in charge of police and security, and his team seemed to have taken a calculated risk by making the decision to ban the 86-year-old religious leader that will put the presidential candidate at odds with several French Muslims less than a month before the elections.

The move could also result in standoffs with some Islamist-led governments and the incoming rulers of Egypt who view Al Qaradawi as a spiritual leader.

However, Sarkozy has to put up with the relentless onslaught by the radical right while his campaign strategists work on painting him as the saviour of France following a week that gripped many in the Hexagon when Mohammad Merah, a radical Muslim Frenchman, killed three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school.

Marine Le Pen, the 43-year-old leader of France’s anti-immigration National Front and presidential candidate from the far right, used Merah’s religion and Algerian origin to rail against foreigners and immigration.

However, Sarkozy insisted that immigrants should not be blamed for the incidents.
“Whenever there is something outrageous to say, we can rely on Marine Le Pen,” Sarkozy said, sarcastically, on the radio. “We cannot assimilate Merah, born in France, to new immigrants. It makes no sense to equate Mohammad Merah with immigration,” he said.

Sarkozy added that “amalgams do not make sense” and that “two paratroops killed by Merah were Muslims.”