1. The Strasbourg City Council unanimously approved yesterday the construction of a confessional Muslim cemetery under public administration, the first one in France. (Alsace has a different system in France in which the traditional religious confessions present for hundreds of years in the region - that is, the Catholic Church and Reformed and Jewish congregations - receive public support. Mohammedanism is not considered a "recognized confession", but that was no problem for the Council.)
2. Last Saturday, June 5, was the day on which the first stone of the mosque of Roissy-en-Brie), a building of 2155 square meters, was placed, in the presence of Chantal Brunel (MP for the constituency) and Sylvie Fuchs (Communist mayor of Roissy-en-Brie), as well as Sheikh Saeed Ramadan Al Bouti and Mohamad Nasereddin (Chairman of the Muslim Cultural Association of Roissy-en-Brie).
The mayor has contributed to this construction project by agreeing to lower the price of land, which used to be government-owned, by about 10%, at its sale in 2008 to the Muslim Cultural Association of Roissy-en-Brie, responsible for the project. The General Council of the Department of Seine-et-Marne also gave a contribution, of 185 000 euros, which will be matched by the contribution of the regional council of Île-de-France.
