The Muslims in Trappes 

The first Muslims settled down in Trappes in the year 1960s and '70s. Most of them work in car manufactures in Paris suburbs or in building areas where many foreign workers were needed. Hence, many buildings were built to allow the mass arrival of foreigners to have proper housing. Today, 70 percent of the housing is what we call social housing.

In the '80s, the second generation arrived: the children of the first immigrants. In Trappes, these children had many issues in finding their place in the French society. Poor performance at school, unemployment and delinquency. Religious practices were a very marginal thing to the youth and it was a more individual matter to the parents. Even today the town of Trappes still bear the mark of the past the violence.

Nevertheless, in the '90s and major change occurred among the Muslims of Trappes. He was really wanted to correct the vicious circle of failure and delinquency. The third generation wanted to succeed in school, have a job career, and especially succed in family life. In the meantime, religious values came back: mosques are now full of worshippers, and more important is that the youth represents the major part of the worshippers.

The muslims in Trappes have different origins. They mainly come from the Maghreb (Morrocco, Algeria, Tunisia) or “black” Africa ( Mali, Senegal or Mauritania) but there are also people from Turkey, Pakistan, India, Indonesia or french people who converted to islam. For these men and women from different origins union is something necessary to overcome every cultural acquisitions for the community to become rich by having different point of views.

From the very beginning, these men and women from different origins felt the need to unite their strength around their religious ideal, which gave birth to the Trappes' Muslims Association (the TMA), controlled by the 1901 law about associations.