French PM moots ban on foreign-funded mosques

PARIS: France’s prime minister said Friday he would consider a temporary ban on foreign financing of mosques, urging a “new model” for relations with Islam after a spate of terror attacks.

Manuel Valls, under fire for perceived security lapses around the attacks, also admitted a “failure” in the fact that one of the terrorists who stormed a church and killed a priest on Tuesday had been released with an electronic tag pending trial.

In an interview with French daily struction of mosques.”

The Socialist prime minister also called for imams to be “trained in France, not elsewhere.”

He said Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, whose portfolio also includes religious affairs, was working on building a “new model” for France’s relations with Islam.

France has just over 2,000 mosques, for one of Europe’s largest Muslim populations which numbers around five million.