Alpes-Maritimes prefect Hugues Moutouh announced on Thursday March 14 that he had ordered the closure of Avicenne College, a private Muslim institution outside the treaty, “due to opaque funding and apparent financial irregularities”.
The college, which opened in 2015 and has a capacity of 99 students, will have to close at the end of the school year. The rectory will contact the families so that the children can return to other facilities in September.
The lawyer of the university M.E Sefen Guez Guez, announced on that the establishment is going to challenge this decision in the administrative court.
On February 26, National Education Minister Nicole Belloubet announced that she wanted to close Avicenna College, citing the 2021 anti-separatism law that requires non-contracted private institutions to inform the administration of their financial resources.
According to a communicated from the prefecture on Thursday, the college did not respond to this request “both in substance and in form” during the seventeen months of proceedings.
Accounting and budget problem
The prefecture also claims to have reported to the prosecutor’s office “detected irregularities”, invoking imprecise and untraceable operations, “suspicious loans” provided by an individual to the college for almost 500,000 euros, but also loans and gifts provided by the college to third parties.
In February, the college refuted the minister’s criticism and ensured that the facility was “monitored by the accountant and (held) its accounting up-to-date with the tax administration since its opening ».
The Rector of the Academy in Nice, Natacha Chicot, clarified that there really was a problem “accounting and budgetary situation” from college: “At this stage there have never been any warnings of a possible recruitment or radicalization situation at this facility”.
The announcement comes a few months after the Prefect of the North’s decision to end public subsidies to Averroès High School, France’s main Muslim high school, from the start of the 2024 school year. The state’s decision upheld in summary proceedings by the Lille Administrative Court on 12 February. The Averroès organization said it would appeal to the Council of State to challenge the decision.