PARIS, March 24, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - The annual conference of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF), Paris-le-Bourget, to kick off Friday, March 25, will address how the Muslim minorities in the West cope with their new realities.

“The conference is to tackle the current controversy in France, and Western countries in general, on reaching a common ground between the Western reality and Islam and how Muslims deal with their new realities,” UOIF President Thami Breze told IslamOnline.net Thursday, March 24.

He added that the UOIF, the biggest Muslim body in France which groups about 200 societies, has been working on this theme since its creation.

UOIF was founded in 1983 by a cohort of Moroccan immigrants and came to prominence in the late 1980s during protests against hijab ban that was actually banned over decades later.

Breze said the ultimate aim is to deal with the new realities Muslims face in the West without renouncing their religious obligations or clashing with their society.

A Qur'an competition will be organized on the sidelines of the conference for the third year in a row.

Bourget organizers expect more than 150,000 Muslims from across Europe to attend the four-day gathering, up from last year's 120,000.

France has a population of about six million Muslims, the biggest Muslim minority in Europe.

The UOIF chief played down the importance of some reports that media and official pressures influenced the Bourget agenda as part of efforts to create the so-called “French Islam”.

“We, in the UOIF, continue to find a common ground between our religious believes and social realities without veering away from the tenets of our faith,” Breze said.

He asserted that the four-day conference will focus on reaffirming the French citizenship of the country’s Muslims.

“Belonging to a country should be given higher priority because it could safeguard our rights while maintaining out constants.

“Integration, thus, does not mean loosing out religious identity,” said the leading Muslim activist.

The conference comes a few days after France’s major Islamic groups and Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin signed the statutes of the “Foundation for Islamic Works”, with the aim of financing the construction of mosques and development of other Islamic activities in the European country.

A file photo of last year’s Bourget conference.

A number of leading Muslim figures from several European countries are expected to address the Bourget conference, including Anis Qirqah, member of the European Council of Fatwa and Research; Sheikh Taher Mahdi, director of the Islamic cultural center in Switzerland; Sheikh Ahmed Jaballah, director of the European Institute for Human Sciences; Dalil Boubakeur, rector of Paris Grand Mosque and head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), and Mohamed Bechari, the chair of the National Federation of French Muslims (FNMF).

Also showing up for the four-day conference will be a host of European specialists in Islamic affairs, such as Olivier Roy and Francois Bourgat.

Attending the conference as guest of honors will be François Baroin, a member of the Stasi commission formed last year by French President Jacques Chirac to recommend on secularism and religion in the European country.

Baroin was the only member of the commission who voted against the controversial bill banning hijab in public schools.

Ever since France adopted the legislation, branded as “discriminatory” by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), the issue of hijab has taken central stage in several European countries.

The National Consultative Human Rights Commission said in its latest report that racist attacks against the Muslim minority and Islamic places in France doubled by a mind-boggling 251% in 2004, compared to 2003, far exceeding attacks against followers of other faiths.