French Interior ministry Manuel Valls (C) with Drancy's imam Hassen Chalghoumi and other imams
Photo: AFP
French imams visit Holocaust site
Dozens of Muslim leaders from all over France gather at Shoah memorial in Drancy in bid to show that Islam is a tolerant religion
Dozens of French imams have visited a Holocaust memorial in Drancy in an effort to show that Islam is a tolerant religion.
The Muslim leaders, who traveled from all over France, gathered Monday night at the site of the former detention camp where around 65,000 Jews were held before being deported to extermination camps, mainly to Auschwitz, during World War II.
The event, the first of its kind since the Drancy memorial opened last September, was attended by Interior Minister Manuel Valls who said it "shows that dialogue, tolerance and the understanding of other religions is indispensable in fighting against anti-Semitism and fanaticism."
Some imams present traveled to Israel last year to pray at the tomb of the Jewish children gunned down in Toulouse last March by Mohamed Merah.
