French Muslim in polygamy row hits out at threat to revoke citizenship

Ats Tsaqofah - A Muslim butcher alleged by the French government to be living in a polygamous arrangement with four women and committing benefit fraud via their 12 children has hit out at the authorities, denying his personal life is illegal and poking fun at his adopted country's marital customs. "As far as I know mistresses are not forbidden in France, not by Islam either. Maybe by Christianity but not in France," said Algerian-born Lies Hèbbadj, who has been threatened with the revocation of his French nationality, obtained in 1999, if the reports of polygamy are confirmed.

In the latest twist to an increasingly surreal saga that has once again intensified focus on France's relationship with its 5 million Muslims, the 35-year-old added: "If you can have your citizenship taken away for having mistresses, there are lots of Frenchmen who will have their citizenship taken away."

Hebbadj, who owns a halal butcher's in a suburb of the western city of Nantes, has been the subject of intense media scrutiny since Friday when it emerged that the French interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, had asked the immigration minister, Eric Besson, to look into allegations of polygamy and child benefit fraud.

Explaining the intelligence services' suspicions that Hebbadj was a member of a radical Muslim sect who was living with four fully veiled women, Hortefeux asked Besson to "study the conditions in which ... the individual could be deprived of his French citizenship". Each of the four women was believed to be claiming child benefit as a single mother, Hortefeux said.

Mainstream Muslim groups and leftwing politicians criticised the citizenship threat and accused the government of exploiting an individual case - of which the security services are understood to have been aware for years - in order to rally public opinion around Nicolas Sarkozy's proposed legislation ordered last Wednesday to ban the full Islamic veil.

On Friday, after the French media reported that a Muslim woman had been stopped and fined by police at the beginning of the month for wearing her niqab while driving, the alleged nature of that woman's private life was laid bare by Hortefeux. The 31-year-old is one of the four women with whom Hèbbadj is said to live. The government's tough approach has been generally welcomed by members of Sarkozy's rightwing UMP. The party's parliamentary head, Jean-Francois Copé said Hortefeux - a close friend of the president - had been "absolutely right" to tackle the matter head on.

But others denounced what they saw as a political and potentially divisive move by an embattled leader looking to shore up his crucial but alienated rightwing support base. "I think the tactic is clear. It's about getting back a hold in a part of the electorate which has in part retreated into abstention or voting for the far right," said François Hollande, former head of the Socialist party, on French radio. "You can't just act in the heat of the moment, take a random incident and use it."

France's mainstream Muslim community has in recent months complained that the government has used the practices of a small minority to attack the entire community in its efforts to ban the niqab.

On a visit to Nantes, the Swiss academic Tariq Ramadan accused the French government of cynical manipulation of public opinion, and Hortefeux of "betraying the values of France", while clarifying in Le Parisien newspaper that anyone found to be committing polygamy "must pay for this crime. But since when does a minister say 'We're going to take away his citizenship'?"

Source : khilafah.com