Karim Ouchikh (born 13 March 1965 in Saint-Maurice) is a French politician. He is the current vice-president of the

National Council of European Resistance The National Council of European Resistance (french: Conseil national de la résistance européenne, officially abbreviated as CNRE) is a France-based pan-European far-right political organization co-founded by Renaud Camus and Karim Ouchikh ...

, a far-right pan-European political group. Elected Vice-President of the Rally for the Independence and Sovereignty of France (RIF) in 2008, he participated in 2011 in the foundation of Sovereignty, Identity and Freedoms (SIEL), of which he has been the president since 2014. Ouchikh is a prominent Roman Catholic convert from Islam in France.

Biography

Origins

Karim Ouchikh was born into a modest family of Algerian Berber origin that had settled in France in the 1960s. His father was a

miller A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalent ...

and his mother a housekeeper. He grew up on a housing estate in the suburbs of

Gonesse Gonesse () is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department, in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. The commune lies immediately north of Le Bourget Airport, and it is six kilometres (four miles) south- ...

. In 1990, he registered in the Bar Association and was one of the lawyers defending the victims of the Concorde accident in Gonesse in 2000.

First steps on the left

In 1995, Ouchikh joined the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

and became a member of the municipal government of deputy mayor Jean-Pierre Blazy. However, Ouchikh disagreed with the left on European and social questions, and he left the SP in the mid-2000s, after sustained at the 2005 congress the motion for a left alternative.

Evolution to the right

In 2008, Ouchikh joined the Rassemblement for the Independence and Sovereignty of France (RIF), of which he became vice-president, and participated in the creation of the party Sovereignty, Identity and Freedoms in 2011. After the resignation of

Paul-Marie Coûteaux Paul-Marie Coûteaux (born 31 July 1956, in Paris) is a French politician and author. He served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2009 for the Movement for France, and since 2022 has been a member of Reconquête. Early life P ...

in 2014, he was elected acting president of the SIEL. Finally, on 25 October, a new Congress elected him President. He is a director of the

Rassemblement bleu Marine Rassemblement bleu Marine (, RBM) was a French political coalition of right-wing and far-right political parties created by Marine Le Pen in 2012 before the legislative elections. It originally consisted of the National Front, the Sovere ...

and a cultural advisor to the president of

Front National The National Rally (french: Rassemblement National, ; RN), until 2018 known as the National Front (french: link=no, Front National, ; FN), is a far-rightAbridged list of reliable sources that refer to National Rally as far-right: Academic: ...

. Regarding the presidential election of 2017, Ouchikh "supports the candidacy of Marine Le Pen while watching with kindness

Renaud Camus Renaud Camus (; ; born Jean Renaud Gabriel Camus on 10 August 1946) is a French novelist, conspiracy theorist and white nationalist writer. He is the inventor of the " Great Replacement", a far-right conspiracy theory that claims that a "glob ...

", and also supported

Jean-Frédéric Poisson Jean-Frédéric Poisson (born 22 January 1963) is a French right-wing politician and the president of VIA, the Way of the People (previously called the Christian Democratic Party). He was mayor of Rambouillet from 2004 to 2007, then became a ...

, president of the

Christian Democratic Party __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social tea ...

, in the Republican presidential primary. However, denouncing "the hegemonic will of

Florian Philippot Florian Philippot (born 24 October 1981) is a French politician. He served as Vice President of the National Front (France), National Front from 2012 to 2017 before quitting the party to found The Patriots (France), The Patriots in September 201 ...

", the SIEL ended its alliance with the FN in the Rassemblement bleu Marine in November 2016. He is also a councillor and agglomeration of

and a regional councillor of

Île-de-France , timezone1 = CET , utc_offset1 = +01:00 , timezone1_DST = CEST , utc_offset1_DST = +02:00 , blank_name_sec1 = Gross regional product , blank_info_sec1 = Ranked 1st , bla ...

. The administrative court of

Cergy-Pontoise Cergy-Pontoise () is a new town and an agglomeration community in France, in the Val-d'Oise and Yvelines departments, northwest of Paris on the river Oise. It owes its name to two of the communes that it covers, Cergy and Pontoise. Its populatio ...

invalidated his municipal campaign accounts on 27 October 2014 for late justification of certain invoices. The

State Council State Council may refer to: Government * State Council of the Republic of Korea, the national cabinet of South Korea, headed by the President * State Council of the People's Republic of China, the national cabinet and chief administrative auth ...

invalidated the decision in December 2016, allowing the reimbursement of his campaign expenses. In 2017, Ouchikh was a candidate in the ninth district of Val-d'Oise. He finished 13th with 0.68% of the votes. In 2019, he ran with

for the

European parliament elections Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Unti ...

: "we shall not leave Europe, we shall make Africa leave Europe," as they wrote to define their agenda.

Religious beliefs

A member of a poor Muslim family, Ouchikh converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

during the pontificate of

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

, after being touched by the faith of the participants in

World Youth Day World Youth Day (WYD) is an event for young people organized by the Catholic Church that was initiated by Pope John Paul II in 1985, sometimes nicknamed in later years as the "Catholic Woodstock". Its concept has been influenced by the Light-L ...

in 1997. Baptized by Father Philippe Dorizon, he received

confirmation In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on ...

from Mgr

Jean-Yves Riocreux Monsignor Jean-Yves Riocreux (born 24 February 1946 at Marlhes) is the French Roman Catholic Bishop of Basse-Terre. Mgr Riocreux was appointed Bishop of Pontoise on 5 May 2003 and consecrated on 29 June 2003. He was appointed Bishop of Basse-Te ...

. He claims to have acquired during his catechumen "an indispensable spiritual teaching" but also to have discovered "a Christian civilization of which edid not suspect until very recently the infinite wealth of". In September 2016, he founded the SOS Churches of France association, intended to fight for the defense of the Christian heritage of France.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ouchikh, Karim 1965 births Living people People from Saint-Maurice, Val-de-Marne Converts to Roman Catholicism from Islam French former Muslims French Roman Catholics French people of Algerian descent Socialist Party (France) politicians 20th-century French lawyers Far-right politics in France