The respite was short-lived. The mosque of Pessac, in the Bordeaux region, is once again the target of the Gironde prefecture, this time through the person of Abdouramane Ridouane, the president of the mosque association who is facing an expulsion procedure.

In 2022, the Pessac mosque was temporarily closed by the prefecture, as it allegedly promoted ‘radical Islam’ and conveyed ‘a Salafist ideology’ (quoted from the closure order). Criticism of Israeli policy was also invoked in the closure order. This order was annulled by the Administrative Court of Bordeaux, a decision later confirmed by the Council of State.

However, the same arguments are now being invoked in the Prefecture’s request for the expulsion of Mr. Ridouane to his country of origin, Niger. The commission responsible for examining this request from the Prefecture will meet on Friday, May 31 at 2 PM, at the Judicial Court of Bordeaux.

Following this relentless targeting of the Pessac mosque, the religious edifice has been vandalized seven times in the last two years, with Islamophobic and racist insults. The most recent incident, on May 25, was by the racist group ‘Action directe identitaire’, which wrote ‘Foreign imams out of France’ on one of the walls.