The management of the Muslim high school Averroès of Lille deplored, Thursday, the disclosure in the press of extracts "erroneous" of a confidential report of the Regional Chamber of Accounts. The establishment denounces recurrent media "attacks" and unjustified "fantasies".

This school of 800 students, the first private Muslim high school under contract in France, was recently audited by the Regional Chamber of Accounts (CRC). In a report that remains to be finalized, the CRC insists on the "critical financial" situation of the school and pinpoints the presence in the program of an optional course of "Muslim ethics". The CRC also mentions the use of a work laying down rules to be followed, including the prohibition, on pain of death, of apostasy or the pre-eminence of divine law.

"Recurrent attacks, suspicions, fantasies"

The director of the school group, Eric Dufour, noted during a press briefing that the CRC had since indicated that some extracts leaked to the press were "erroneous". He regretted the "recurrent attacks, suspicions, fantasies propagated for years", in "total ignorance" of the establishment, and despite the "very many inspections and controls". A dozen teachers, students and parents were present at his side to defend an establishment they say they have chosen for "its excellence" and its "republican values".

Eric Dufour acknowledged "a lack of vigilance" about the book questioned by the CRC, an annotated edition of the "forty hadiths of Imam an-Nawawi", which "poses a problem in terms of comments" and "was poorly chosen". But the book was not offered directly to students and was only included in a bibliography for teachers, he noted.

Regarding old funding from Qatar, the director joked: "At PSG, it's not a problem. Would having a loan mean formatting, indoctrinating 800 students, their teachers? It's unbelievable." He also regretted the "break in communication" with the Hauts-de-France region, which for four years has been reluctant to pay the subsidies it owes to the school, but has been forced to do so by the courts. This situation "jeopardizes the survival of the establishment, more or less long term," he said.

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