An event will be held in Carros on January the 21st. A panel discussion will be organised in the presence of Tariq Ramadan and 96 participants will also attend, reports Nice-Matin. The exact location is still being kept secret, but the aim is to avoid a similar controversy as in 2016, the last time he came to the Côte-d’Azur. The municipal opposition in Carros had contested a conference with Tariq Ramadan planned in March 2016. The Front National (now Rassemblement National) had even applied for an injunction before the administrative court in Nice to have the event banned. Almost seven years later, Tariq Ramadan would still not be welcome for some critical voices.
As Nice-Matin reported on Friday January the 7th, controversy arose over the upcoming debate with the Swiss Islamic scholar, who is accused of rape by five women and is considered close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Marine Vengeon, co-founder of Uni.e.s Nice, told journalists it was “harmful and inadmissible to give the floor to a man accused of raping women”. According to the feminist, this deprives victims of the opportunity to express their opinions. “This is bashing. It’s just like appointing a minister accused of sexual violence as minister of the interior,” she said, referring to the rape allegations against Gérald Darmanin, whose investigation ended in September 2021.
On the occasion of this debate in Carros, Tariq Ramadan is to comment on the following two works: The Prophet by Khalil Gibran and The Prince by Machiavelli. “We invite the author and the intellectual. We will not talk about religion or his private affairs,” one of the organisers of the event defended to Nice-Matin. The journalist Feïza Ben Mohamed from Nice, who is also close to Tariq Ramadan, recalled that the writer “has not been tried” and therefore “the presumption of innocence applies”. She questioned in Nice-Matin: “How many prominent journalists and TV presenters have the right to go on air when they are accused of similar incidents?” She called, moreover, for “questioning the treatment of Tariq Ramadan in the media”. Despite everything, his visit remains “very disturbing” for Marine Vengeon, who doubts the legitimacy of the Islamic scholar to debate literary works. “When it comes to commenting on Machiavelli’s The Prince, I know dozens of people who would do it brilliantly”.