Paris: France has ordered the closure of a mosque in the north of the country because of the radical nature of his sermon the priest, the regional authorities told AFP on Tuesday.
Mosque in Beauvais, a town of 50,000 people about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Paris, will remain closed for six months, according to the prefecture where Beauvais Oise region are located.
It said there sermons inciting hatred, violence and “defend jihad”.
The move comes two weeks after the Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said he had triggered the procedure to close the site because the priest there “targeting Christians, homosexuals and Jews” in his sermons.
This, said the Minister, “unacceptable”.
Local authorities are legally bound to launch a 10-day period of gathering information before taking action, but told AFP on Tuesday that the mosque will now be closed within two days.
Local Courrier Picard newspaper reported this month that the Imam of the mosque is a recent conversion.
The paper quotes a lawyer for the association that manages the mosque said that his remarks had been “taken out of context”, and said that the priest was suspended from his duties after the letter of the prefecture.
The French government announced earlier this year that it would increase spot checks of worship and association are suspected of spreading radical Islamic propaganda.
Crackdown came after the murder Teacher targeted Paty October 2020 after an online campaign against him for showing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published by Satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for a class of people.
The Interior Ministry said this month that about 100 mosques and Muslim prayer hall of the total number of French over 2,600 have been investigated over the past few months because of the suspicion that they spread the ideology of “separatist”.
Six sites examined with a view to closing them under the laws of France against Islamic extremism and separatism, he said.