2023-09-06 12:00:05
Students from the Louis-Pasteur high school, in Strasbourg, July 4, 2023. FREDERICK FLORIN / AFP
Elias Timzalem entertains not far from his home, in a somewhat stuffy tea room in Versailles. We come across a few young gilt-edged ones and a number of well-dressed old ladies. Not an abaya in sight. With his long, untrimmed beard, Elias Timzalem stands out. But, Versaille obliges, he wears a blazer-style jacket with golden buttons and an elegant leather satchel. Her sophisticated updo and rimless glasses complete a look that’s hard to categorize. Like his thought.
Since the announcement of the ban on wearing the abaya at school, Elias Timzalem, founder of the Islam & Info site, now dormant, is one of the most active and virulent voices on X (ex -Twitter) to mobilize against this measure that he judges “Islamophobe”. The forties, who describes himself as a “Muslim community and political influencer”prefers the label of“islamic” to that of an Islamist.
The abaya? He is not for it in itself, but declares himself fiercely against its prohibition. Not so much in the name of her religious values as of the right of each to dispose of her body. “In Islam, there is no clergy, it is up to each woman to decide what she wears, including the veilhe notes. The abaya is a reflection of those who wear it and also the result of the influence of TikTok, of fashion, of the desire to be noticed…” What he criticizes for banning the abaya is “defining secularism, and ultimately Frenchness, as the antithesis of Islam, as if it needed an enemy to exist”.
“Be Proud”
Since the dissolution by decree of the Collective against Islamophobia in France in the fall of 2020, Elias Timzalem has been one of the community voices very listened to on this question. He is far from alone. We can also cite Sihem Zine, of the association Action the rights of Muslims. The political scientist Gilles Kepel groups them under the unflattering name of“Anger Entrepreneurs”.
For Mr. Timzalem, the ban on the abaya at school will not pass like that of the veil in 2004: “The real country has changed, it has mixed. This country is us too. We saw it with the riots that followed the death of Nahel M. [un jeune de 17 ans tué par un policier lors d’un contrôle routier, à Nanterre, le 27 juin]. There is a Muslim youth who no longer wants to be silent and bow down. This generation does not demand its rights, it exercises them. »
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The ban on the abaya at school under debate at the Council of State
It is difficult to find in France a religious authority or community leaders explicitly campaigning for the wearing of the abaya at school. In the Muslim sphere, people are rather mobilizing against its ban, following the example of Feiza Ben Mohamed, correspondent in France for the official Turkish Anadolu agency and polemicist, who posted on his account X Sunday, September 3: “Welcome back to school to all our little sisters who will return to class tomorrow, in the outfit of their choice. Be proud of who you are and don’t let anyone make you think you’re an under-citizen. »
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