Sunday evening, a report from the program “Forbidden Zone”, on M6, devoted to separatism and radical Islam, once again put the spotlight on Roubaix. “A scandal that mixes politics and religion”, prevents the voiceover.
Since then, in the streets of Roubaix, the inhabitants are sorry for this degraded image that many consider caricatured of the city of 97 nationalities. The various right mayor, Guillaume Delbar, denounces the « Roubaix bashing », while waiting to explain himself before the Lille court. The elected official must answer for “misappropriation of public funds by negligence” for having subsidized an association, itself suspected of “breach of trust” for having given Koranic lessons.
The case, disclosed by The voice of the North in March 2021, should be judged this 1is February, even if a postponement cannot be ruled out. In the sights of justice, the school support association Ambitions and initiatives for success (AAIR), created in 2007, now suspected of “proselytism”. Cited as an example by the mayor of the city for its good results with young people with learning difficulties (300 children and adolescents followed each year), the AAIR began to be talked about in 2020. A lawyer from Roubaix then alerted the authorities local and prefectural: according to Amine Elbahi, under the guise of tutoring, the AAIR would offer in premises made available by the city religious lessons in an Islam deemed rigorous, instead of Arabic language lessons.
“I may have been wrong”
After investigation and checks, the State services put “evidence that the association provided Arabic courses of a religious nature”, explains the prefecture. The prefect suspends, from 1is March 2021, state subsidies to AAIR (6,000 euros), requests reimbursement of the subsidies paid (24,000 euros between 2016 and 2019) and reports to the Lille prosecutor’s office. A search takes place in the premises of the association, at the beginning of May 2021. The AAIR ends its activities in September. The mayor is heard as a witness in the investigation for “breach of trust” targeting the AAIR, on November 9, and three leaders of the association are placed in police custody, at the end of November.
It took until the summer of 2021 for the city to bring out the local association – around ten classes in the former Samain college – and freeze the subsidies (64,640 euros paid in 2020). Too slow a reaction? “I personally went to AAIR demonstrations dozens of times and the population, which was that of Roubaix, did not particularly show any ostentatious signs of religion.entrust to World Guillaume Delbar. And when I had asked the president of the AAIR to account, his answer did not call for doubt. » Was the mayor of Roubaix too negligent in controlling the proper use of public money? Justice will have to decide.
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