Hassan Iquioussen (born ) (), in Denain, France, is a Moroccan imam and lecturer of frériste obedience, member of Musulmans de France (ex-UOIF), an organisation known to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood. He is one of the founders of the Jeunes musulmans de France (JMF).
From 2003, he sparked controversy for antisemitic and misogynistic statements. He was placed on the fiche S in February 2021 for statements favourable to Osama bin Laden.
In January 2023, he was expelled to Morocco by Belgian justice, the country to which he had fled while a judgment of the French Council of State against him was due to be rendered.
Early life and education Hassan Iquioussen was born in Denain in 1964, into a family of Moroccan expatriates.
He is originally from the Souss. His father left to work in France in the mining basin in 1936. He married in 1958 and fathered nine children. He helped set up the first mosques in the Valenciennois in modest barracks.
Hassan Iquioussen, the fifth child of this sibling group, was born in Denain, a commune in the Nord near Valenciennes. Destined to automatically acquire French nationality at his majority, he claims to have faced his father's opposition, who renounced it on his behalf during his adolescence. He states that he applied for French nationality twice, in 1984 and 1990, without success, while his brothers and sisters were able to obtain it.
After obtaining a general literary baccalauréat, he earned a licence in Arabic, a maîtrise in history on Usman dan Fodio, then abandoned his studies while pursuing a DEA in history to devote himself to Islam.
Family life At the age of 20, he married Zaina, a Moroccan born in Casablanca, sister of the wife of the essayist and imam Tareq Oubrou. Five sons were born of their union, the eldest being Soufiane Iquioussen.
On 31 October 2020, his home in Lourches was searched by the gendarmerie brigade of Valenciennes. This search followed the French government's desire to put Islamists under pressure after the murder of Samuel Paty, but also an audition of his eldest son Soufiane on 22 October 2020 in the context of an investigation into malversations around a company (Garage Solidaire du Hainaut).
Real estate holdings On 27 March 2003, Hassan and Zaina Iquioussen bought from the company Darmanin Père & Fils (directed by Claude Darmanin, paternal uncle of the future Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin) a 3.5-hectare property in Lourches, which the preacher soon transformed into a family headquarters. Devoted to livestock farming (cattle, sheep and goats), it is commonly nicknamed "the farm" by locals.
In 2022, Hassan Iquioussen declared that he was the manager of four sociétés civiles immobilières, created with his wife or children. For example, he owns "La résidence Sainte-Reine" in Denain. Renovated for 800,000 euros, it comprises 20 apartments, with one studio, five T2s and fourteen T3s.
Career as a preacher He began preaching at the age of 17, quickly gaining some notoriety thanks to his father. He trained as an autodidact, then was taken in hand by Dr Mohammed Jamal, who structured the hard core of the frériste movement in the region, of which Amar Lasfar (then Amar Asfar) became the leader at the time.
He became, with Hani Ramadan, one of the first two flagship French-language preachers.
He is one of the founders of the Jeunes musulmans de France (JMF) and was nicknamed the "prêcheur des cités". Accusing the Union des organisations islamiques de France (UOIF) of being taken over by the Moroccan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Adl Wal Ihsane, the JMF decided to break organically with it. In October 1994, he was part of the intégristes who encouraged several young Maghrebi women to keep their hijab at the lycée Faidherbe in Lille while the establishment wanted to ban it under a circular from the Minister of National Education, François Bayrou.
In 2004, he was professor of Muslim ethics at the lycée Averroès.
At the end of the 2000s, Hassan Iquioussen gave the "second part" of the conferences of Tariq Ramadan, with whom he is close. He was also a regular guest at the Bourget fair, organised every year by the UOIF of frériste orientation and identity, and described as the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Relations with French authorities At the beginning of 2014, he took part with his son in a pre-municipal election dinner in a private home in the Gambetta district of Tourcoing. This meeting, organised in the presence of around ten other influential personalities within the local Muslim community as well as the UMP candidate for mayor Gérald Darmanin, aimed to bring the votes of the Muslims of Tourcoing into the latter's fold, with whom Iquioussen declared he agreed on 99.9% of conversation topics.
From February 2021, he was the subject of a fiche S. A few months later, he was sentenced to 3 months in prison with suspended sentence for irregular ritual slaughter on his property in Lourches.
At the end of January 2022, a witness told Le Figaro that Hassan Iquioussen preached armed jihad and the fight against France in conferences organised in the premises of the AAIR (Ambitions et initiatives pour la réussite), a controversial Roubaisienne association.
Expulsion procedure in 2022 In 2022, the prefecture of the Nord refused to renew Hassan Iquioussen's residence permit, accusing him of hateful speeches against the values of the Republic, including laïcité and equality between women and men, as well as the development of antisemitic and conspiracy theses around islamophobia.
According to his lawyer, Lucie Simon, the prefecture relies on white notes, reporting no recent or verifiable statements; the cited conferences for the most part were not recorded, while more than a thousand videos of him are available on the internet. She adds that his client's recent and numerous public positions are in favour of laïcité, male-female equality, Republican values and against xenophobia.
On 3 May 2022, he received at his home a notification bulletin of the initiation of an expulsion procedure against him. On 22 June 2022, the departmental commission for the expulsion of foreigners gave a favourable opinion after Prefect Georges-François Leclerc pleaded in his favour.
On 28 July 2022, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin announced that the imam would be expelled under the law reinforcing respect for the principles of the Republic.
According to his entourage, he had criticised the King of Morocco, something not to be done in Morocco. Upon landing, he risked trouble. He would have an interest in applying for a residence permit in another country, perhaps Belgium, to stay close to his family. Having heard of this hypothesis, the president of the Mouvement réformateur (MR) Georges-Louis Bouchez opposed his installation on Belgian territory, denouncing too much laxity around the reception of preachers of hate.
On 29 July 2022, the Minister of the Interior signed the ministerial expulsion order (AME) against the imam.
On 1 August 2022, the Moroccan authorities issued a consular laissez-passer, allowing, according to Gérald Darmanin, the expulsion manu militari of Mr Iquioussen from national territory. On 31 August 2022, the consular laissez-passer was suspended by the Moroccan authorities, who deplored a lack of consultation.
Administrative court referral in France
Before the Administrative Tribunal of Paris On 1 August 2022, he referred the matter to the Administrative Tribunal of Paris in the context of a référé-liberté aimed at suspending the AME issued against him. In the afternoon of 4 August 2022, a public hearing was held before the court, sitting in collegiate formation for the occasion. On 5 August 2022, it decided to suspend the AME, citing a serious and manifestly disproportionate infringement of Hassan Iquioussen's right to lead a normal private and family life. According to Mediapart, which was able to consult the suspension order, the court considered that certain positions attributed by the minister to Hassan Iquioussen, such as his rejection of Western values or his supposed support for Osama bin Laden, were not established by any document in the proceedings. For the attested statements cited, they do not constitute incitement to discrimination or hatred. The statements judged retrograde on the role of women in the family could not constitute a sufficient ground for expulsion, given the repercussions on Mr Iquioussen's family life.
European Court of Human Rights On 3 August 2022, Hassan Iquioussen's lawyer referred the matter to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which refused the next day to suspend his expulsion on the grounds that it would not entail irreparable risks for his person. Following a new referral to the ECtHR against France in September 2022, the judges rejected all of Hassan Iquioussen's requests on 15 June 2023 for inadmissibility.
Ministerial appeal to the Council of State The Minister of the Interior announced that he would appeal the decision to the Council of State. In the event that the latter did not rule in his favour, he envisaged resorting to a change in legislation according to Sacha Houlié (LREM), president of the Law Commission of the National Assembly. On 10 August 2022, an appeal was indeed filed with the Council of State, which examined the case on 26 August 2022 and annulled the administrative order suspending the AME on 30 August 2022, considering that Hassan Iquioussen's antisemitic statements as well as his discourse on the inferiority of women and their submission to men constitute explicit and deliberate acts of incitement to discrimination or hatred justifying the expulsion decision. Gérald Darmanin welcomed the verdict, in which he saw a great victory for the Republic.
Departure to Belgium On 30 August 2022 at 7:20 p.m., national police officers presented themselves at the home of Hassan Iquioussen, 228 rue Albert-Cousin in Lourches, with the aim of arresting him and placing him in an administrative detention centre. The person concerned, registered in the file of wanted persons, was however not present and had fled to Belgium.
European arrest warrant On 1 September 2022, an investigating judge in Valenciennes issued a European arrest warrant against him for evading the execution of a removal decision. On 2 September 2022, Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne announced that if Hassan Iquioussen were in his country, he would be expelled. On 30 September 2022, he announced his arrest by Belgian police near the town of Mons, not far from the border with France. From Cayenne (where he was attending the Security Assizes), Gérald Darmanin rejoiced at such an arrest and thanked the Belgian services very sincerely for it. Hassan Iquioussen was incarcerated in the prison of Tournai pending the Belgian courts' decision on his case. On 21 October 2022, the council chamber of the Tournai court refused his extradition to France due to the illegality of the European arrest warrant issued against him. On 27 October 2022, after nearly a month of detention, he was authorised to leave Tournai prison on condition of wearing an electronic bracelet and remaining 24 hours a day at the home of a Belgian-resident friend. On 15 November 2022, the Mons Court of Appeal confirmed the verdict rendered at first instance by the Tournai council chamber.
Expulsion from Belgium to Morocco That same evening, Hassan Iquioussen, considered an irregular alien by the Belgian State, was placed in a closed centre in Vottem with a view to his expulsion to Morocco. Finally, in January 2023, the Belgian authorities expelled him to Casablanca in Morocco.
Follow-up proceedings in France