Mohammed Moussaoui (born 1 April 1964 in Figuig,

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

) is the president of the

French Council of Muslim Faith The French Council of the Muslim Faith (french: Conseil français du culte musulman, usually abbreviated to CFCM), is a national elected body, to serve as an official interlocutor with the French state in the regulation of Muslim religious activi ...

. As of 2008, he is naturalizing as a citizen of France. On August 2, 2011, he gave an interview with French radio station RTL, where he stated that there are nearly 150 new mosques under construction in France, and that there are more practicing Muslims than Roman Catholics in the country. France, home to an estimated six million Muslims, has the largest Muslim population in the European Union. On November 3, 2011 he condemned the previous day's firebombing of French magazine ''

Charlie Hebdo ''Charlie Hebdo'' (; meaning ''Charlie Weekly'') is a French satirical weekly magazine, featuring cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes. Stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication has been described as Anti-racism, anti-racist, sceptica ...

'', saying that it was "an act which can in no way represent the principles of liberty, tolerance and peace that are (our) message", but he went on to regret the "anxious European climate of Islamophobia." He condemned the "hateful act," (of gunmen attacking French satirical magazine in Paris and killing 12 people) and urged Muslims and Christians "to intensify their actions to give more strength to this dialogue, to make a united front against extremism." He also criticized the cartoons, saying that "If freedom of expression gives the right to be satirical or humorous, we can understand that cartoons putting a prophet who is fundamental to millions of believers in suggestive and degrading postures cannot fall within this right." After the

murder of Samuel Paty The murder of Samuel Paty (), a French secondary school teacher, took place on 16 October 2020 in Éragny-sur-Oise, a suburb of Paris. Paty was killed and beheaded by an Islamist terrorist. The perpetrator, Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov, an ...

in october 2020, Mohammed Moussaoui declared that "French Muslims are shocked and hurt"; "To those who think that our religion can be used for the purposes of terror and barbarism, their actions are an insult to the memory of the Prophet, a travesty of his message."

References

Living people French Muslims French people of Moroccan descent People from Figuig 1964 births {{France-reli-bio-stub