A Muslim school in Toulouse that has been under surveillance since 2016 and narrowly escaped closure in 2018 has been reported to the competent court, France Bleu reported on Monday August 30. The Avicenne Al-Badr institution has been reported to the public prosecutor’s office for various “obvious violations”, the Toulouse academy’s rector said. “Two inspections have revealed obvious shortcomings at both the educational and administrative levels,” he said.
Among other things, the inspections found deficiencies in the teaching of basic skills, insufficient material to ensure compulsory education and shortcomings in the administration, such as “the irregular presence of the headmaster, whose duties are delegated to unauthorised persons”, France Bleu reports. In July, the parents of the 130 pupils were notified and told to seek another school.This is not the first time the school has had trouble in court. In 2016, classes were deemed “not in compliance”. The school was closed and its head, an imam with a conservative reputation, was given a four-month suspended prison sentence and banned from running an educational institution. However, the decision was overturned on appeal in 2018, and the institution continued to operate after a new religious association took over. “They created a new structure, but then when we do an inspection, we find the same violations. It’s the same people who are behind these structures,” said the rector of the authority, according to the newspaper France Bleu. However, a new court decision is needed before an administrative closure can be ordered.