Prof. Ahmad At-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ash-Sharif, received on Monday a delegation of French deputies in the European Parliament from the Identity and Democracy Group headed by MP Thierry Mariani, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and the Subcommittee on Human Rights. At the beginning of the meeting, the Grand Imam pointed out that Al-Azhar bears the responsibility of boosting the values of tolerance, dialogue and acceptance of the other, and constantly communicates with all major religious and cultural institutions in Europe and the world, especially at this time which witnesses many challenges. His Eminence added that the biggest challenge is the attempts to impose the Western culture on the citizens of the East under the pretext of human rights, the so-called freedoms and globalization, in a way that can be described as “Neo-colonialism” which imposes on us rejected ideas and behaviour like the campaigns we have recently suffered from that call for homosexuality and other behaviours that are strongly rejected and alien to our Muslim and Arab societies. HE noted that the West's insistence on imposing one perspective on others is a provocation to the Easterners and mere void attempts that are destined to disappear because they contradict Allah’s divine disposition in human beings regarding difference and diversity.

 On his part, the head of the delegation, MP Thierry Mariani, a member of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Human Rights, pointed out that the Identity and Democracy Group in the European Parliament represents an opposition group aiming at promoting identity, stressing that the European society is also a victim of that materialistic culture that aims at turning the citizen into a consumer and ultimately into the product itself. He also explained that as a group they believe in the right of cooperation among all countries while rejecting the attempts to impose certain ideas and orientations on the world, pointing out that what is happening now of imposing the culture of the West on the East contradicts the views of the vast majority in Europe who similarly share the same ideas we believe in. He also noted that this is an inevitable result of the formation of pressure groups which are only looking for their interests, increasing their wealth and achieving more gains for the global arms market. 

The delegation included MP Jerome Riviere, head of the French delegation for the Identity and Democracy Group of the European Parliament and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, and MP Virginie Goron, member of the French delegation of the Identity and Democracy Group of the European Parliament.