France to build new mega-mosque

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MARSEILLE, (France), May 20 (AFP): French Muslims celebrate a milestone on Thursday when building work begins on a mega-mosque in Marseille, the nation's biggest, and a potent symbol of Islam's place in modern France.
A day after the French government approved a bill banning the full Islamic veil, Muslim leaders will join politicians for a ceremony to lay the cornerstone at a dusty construction site in northern Marseille.
France's second city is home to 250,000 Muslims, many of whom flock to makeshift prayer houses in basements, rented rooms and dingy garages to worship.
With a minaret soaring 25 metres (82 feet) high, the Grand Mosque will hold up to 7,000 people in its prayer room and the complex will also boast a Koranic school, library, restaurant and tea room when it opens in 2012.
For more than 60 years, Muslim leaders have campaigned for a mega-mosque as a prominent gathering place that would bring Islam out of the basements and allow it to thrive under Marseille's Mediterranean sun.
The turning point came in 2001 when Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing party, decided to back the 22-million-euro (27 million dollars) project, overriding objections from the far-right.