GETTY Radical imams in France will be replaced with more secular Muslim leaders trained in the country

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The creation of a Foundation for Islam has become the government’s top priority after more than 80 people were killed during the Jihadist attacks in Nice and Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray this summer. France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said yesterday that the government’s aim is to shape “an Islam deeply rooted in the values of the Republic”. The new Islamic foundation in France - home to four million Muslims - will be under the chairmanship of former defence minister, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, and will act as a “bridge between the French state and the country’s Muslims”, said the interior minister.

One branch of the foundation, which will be run by tolerant religious figures, will work on the financing of mosques. The second will encourage cultural projects and help finance imam training. Between 1,600 and 1,800 imams are currently based in France, but most have been trained abroad.

GETTY The new Islamic foundation in France will be under the chairmanship of former defence minister

An agreement regarding the training of imams between France and several Muslim countries including Morocco, Algeria and Turkey, is already in place: these countries regularly loan France their imams.

All foreign-trained imams will be replaced with imams trained in France France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve

Following the string of terror attacks on French soil, the government has had to face up to the fact that some imams were, in fact, extremists, and radicalising their followers. To combat the rise in extremist Muslim preachers, more than 80 imams have been deported since 2012, but this alone is not enough.

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GETTY France can no longer accept the majority of its imams are being trained abroad