Police arrested three Muslim men who engaged in a street prayer on September 11th using a loud sound system to broadcast the prayer.
The three men had gathered on Saturday between 7 am and 7:30 am on the rue du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny in Challans, western France, and began the Muslim prayer, broadcasting it over a powerful sound system they had brought with them.
Local French MP Philippe Latombe, a member of the Democratic Movement, called the action a provocation, Actu reports.
“Twenty years to the day after the four Islamist suicide bombings which left nearly 3,000 dead and 6,000 wounded in the United States, while, symbolic convergence of the calendar, the trial of the attacks of November 13, 2015, which brought mourning to our country, this demonstration of militant piety, perfectly orchestrated [and] provoked — such was obviously the objective — a justified stir of the Challans residents who witnessed it,” Latombe said
Last week, on the first day of the Bataclan massacre trial, surviving terrorist Salah Abdeslam declared himself a soldier of the Islamic State, saying: “I gave up any profession to become an Islamic State soldier.”
Latombe said: “The three individuals, at least one of whom is known to the police services (I have already had the opportunity to speak with the prefecture about him), have been arrested by the gendarmes and will be subject to administrative supervision and surveillance measures, as provided for in Article 3 of the 2017 law strengthening internal security and the fight against terrorism, known as the SILT law.”
Islamic street prayers in France have been seen many times in recent years despite being banned. They were used as a form of protest in Clichy in 2017 after authorities shut down an illegal prayer hall.