PARIS
The French government has announced what it said was a plan to "promote dialogue" with the country's Muslims.
Government speaker Stephane Le Foll said in a press conference on Wednesday after a weekly ministerial meeting that the "training" of imams and funding for mosques would be included in the scheme, which is being put forward amid increasing religious tension in France after 17 people were killed in two gun attacks in Paris.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls will hold a meeting with Muslim representatives twice a year, according to a plan proposed by the Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
The move comes after Prime Minister Manuel Valls called earlier this month for "the reconsideration of the organization of the Islamic community in France".
- 'Integrated and compatible'
He said on Tuesday that France "seeks to establish a model of Islam that is fully integrated, fully compatible with the values of the Republic".
France has an estimated five million Muslims - about eight percent of the country's population and the largest Muslim community in Western Europe.
Dalil Boubakeur, the head of the Islamic organization the Conseil Francais du Culte Musulman (CFCM) and rector of Paris' Grand Mosque, said on Tuesday he had requested the support of the authorities to provide training for imams in order "to ensure that they do not spread extremist messages".
Boubakeur boycotted an annual dinner organized by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, or CRIF, on Monday after its leader Roger Cukierman said that "young Muslims were responsible for all violent crimes in France".
The vice president of CFCM told The Anadolu Agency that those comments can only unite the Muslims of France.
President Francois Hollande received both Jewish and Muslim leaders of the CRIF and CFCM on Tuesday afternoon in an effort to heal the rift.
