AMMALE was born on 7 October 2023 at the Grand Mosque of Paris, on the same day that Hamas invaded Israel. Months later, on 31 May 2024, the Coordination Council registered in the European Union Transparency Register as an interest representative, under the code 104923392230-05.
The registration formalised what the statutes already announced — influencing European institutions, defending the rights of the Muslim minority, and coordinating legal political action in Brussels and in the capitals. It is not a party, but a religious structure with a lobbying vocation, funded around the Grand Mosque of Paris and with its headquarters also announced in the Belgian capital.
The calls to vote were concrete and public. In April and May 2024, Chems-eddine Hafiz, rector of the mosque and president of AMMALE, urged French Muslims, and in particular the Algerian diaspora, to register on the electoral rolls and vote in the June European elections against the far right. After the victory of the Rassemblement National, he repeated the appeal in the snap legislative elections to 'firmly oppose' the RN.
Vice-president Abdassamad El Yazidi, linked to the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, summed up the line — mobilising the electorate to prevent states from 'turning against the founding values of Europe'. They did not field their own lists, they ran a tactical-voting campaign.
Hafiz’s political ties did not begin in 2023. In April 2022 he organised a 'republican iftar' at the mosque in support of Emmanuel Macron’s re-election, with Christophe Castaner and other figures from the majority. In July of that year, Macron promoted him to officer of the Legion of Honour. At the same time, the Franco-Algerian rector chaired in France the support committee for Abdelmadjid Tebboune in the Algerian presidential elections and is described, by critics and by a former French ambassador in Algiers, as a channel of influence for the Algerian regime. On the other side of the spectrum, RN deputy Julien Odoul accused him of foreign interference and questioned the Ministry of the Interior about Algerian funding of the mosque.
The picture that emerges is of an organisation that combines a discourse of 'moderate' Islam and European citizenship with explicit electoral intervention and a president accustomed to moving between the Élysée and Algiers.
AMMALE did not elect any deputies. What it did secure was a formal place in Brussels’ influence machine and a megaphone to steer the Muslim vote against the radical right — while its leader cultivates privileged relations with the French centre of power and with the Algerian authorities.
The coincidence of the founding date with 7 October did not arise in a vacuum.
While Hamas invaded Israel and murdered 1,200 people in the October 7 attack, on the same day an event at the Grand Mosque of Paris brought together important Muslim religious figures.
The mosque, imposing with its 33-meter minaret, the largest in France and the third largest in Europe, was founded in October 1926 in the 5th arrondissement, Paris’s oldest neighborhood, after the First World War in gratitude to the roughly 100,000 Muslim soldiers from the French colonies who died fighting Germany.
Perhaps because of its historical importance, the Paris mosque was chosen as the venue for the inaugural general assembly of the Coordinating Council of the Alliance of Mosques, Muslim Associations and Leaders of Europe (AMMALE). Muslim leaders from seventeen European countries were the founding members of the Alliance’s Coordinating Council, which aims to expand and include other representatives and individuals from backgrounds beyond the religious sphere.
The general assembly adopted a joint resolution as the basis for its future commitments and actions, signed by Chems-eddine Hafiz, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris and president of AMMALE’s Coordinating Council.
The resolution, published the following day, October 8, while Israel was still neutralizing the last invading terrorists on its territory and had not yet been able to count the bodies, is clear in its aims: 'To demonstrate the spirit of solidarity among European Muslims, who have inherited the true Islam of moderation. To unite, around the Grand Mosque of Paris, individuals who share common human and spiritual values. At the same time, to chart a course for a peaceful and integrated Islam in every country on the continent, showing how Muslim citizens are an integral part of its history, present and prosperous future. AMMALE will work to address the various challenges related to the organization, representation and practice of Islam in Europe. The focus will be on strengthening religious institutions, promoting the educational, charitable, culturally enriching and interfaith-dialogue missions entrusted to mosques, combating extremist tendencies, spreading an Islam that preaches peace, kindness and fraternity, and fighting anti-Muslim acts and rhetoric.'
But AMMALE, which means 'hope' in Arabic, also has other purposes. It intends to 'unite the voices and efforts of Muslim institutions and personalities across Europe', fight against the 'far right' that forces 'European states to turn against Europe’s founding values', and field candidates for the European Parliament. And indeed they did so in the subsequent European elections.
In fact, October 7 did not happen in a vacuum, and the date shared by so many events is no coincidence.