PARIS — With an eye to putting a French stamp on Islam, the country's second-largest religion, the center-right government has initiated a civics training experiment for imams and Muslim chaplains in an unusual venue: the prestigious Catholic Institute of Paris.
A mostly male class of 25 began courses in January aimed at offering a broad understanding of French legal, historical and social norms at the institution, better known for producing priests and Christian scholars.
The training is intended to help shape a new generation of Islamic clerics for France's Muslim population of 5 million to 7 million, the largest in Western Europe. Beyond that is a subtext: France wants to ensure that the message sounding from French mosques is not marked by radical Islam, but rather by the nation's fiercely cherished separation of church and state....
