PARIS – As France shuts down 20 mosques and prayer halls across the country, France’s top Muslim body said Monday that a new foundation would  be created to help finance mosques in France and keep out foreign donors.

“Almost all Muslims of France are attached to a serene, open, tolerant Islam and they are fully respecting the values and laws of the Republic,” Anouar Kbibech, who heads the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), an umbrella organization of French Muslim groups, said on LCI television, France 24 reported on Tuesday, August 2.

His announcement follows calls by Prime Minister Manuel Valls last week to end the funding from abroad of French mosques.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has also announced closing 20 mosques and prayer halls of the country’s 2500 mosques.

“Fight against the #radicalization: since December 2015, twenty Muslim places of worship have been closed,” the Interior Ministry tweeted.

“There is no place … in France for those who call for and incite hatred in prayer halls or in mosques … About 20 mosques have been closed, and there will be others,” Cazeneuve added.

After meeting Kbebich, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said he wanted the foundation to be launched in October.

The debate about the financing of mosques in France was revived by last week’s murder of an elderly priest in a Normandy church by two Islamic extremists.

The CFCM condemned the “cowardly assassination” of Father Jacques Hamel on Tuesday by two militants affiliated to the so-called Islamic State (ISIL).

Muslim leaders came out shortly after the horrendous attacks to condemn them.

Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, said the attack was a “blasphemous sacrilege which goes against all the teachings of our religion.”

The Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF) has also condemned the shocking attack, expressing its full support to all the Christian communities in France.

France is home to a Muslim community of nearly six million, the largest in Europe.