Karim Ouchikh

Karim Ouchikh
Vice President of the National Council of European Resistance
Incumbent
Assumed office
2017
PresidentRenaud Camus
Personal details
Born (1965-03-13) 13 March 1965 (age 59)
Saint-Maurice, France
Political partySovereignty, Identity and Freedoms (2011–present)
Other political
affiliations		Socialist Party (1995–2005)
Rassemblement for the Independence and Sovereignty of France (2008–2011)
ProfessionLawyer

Karim Ouchikh (born 13 March 1965) is a French politician. He is the current vice-president of the National Council of European Resistance, a far-right pan-European political group.

Elected Vice-President of the Rally for the Independence and Sovereignty of France (RIF) in 2008, he participated in 2011 in the foundation of Sovereignty, Identity and Freedoms (SIEL), of which he has been the president since 2014. Ouchikh is a prominent Roman Catholic convert from Islam in France.

Biography

Origins

Karim Ouchikh was born into a modest family of Algerian Berber origin that had settled in France in the 1960s. His father was a miller and his mother a housekeeper. He grew up on a housing estate in the suburbs of Gonesse.

In 1990, he registered in the Bar Association[1] and was one of the lawyers defending the victims of the Concorde accident in Gonesse in 2000.[2]

First steps on the left

In 1995, Ouchikh joined the Socialist Party and became a member of the municipal government[where?] of deputy mayor Jean-Pierre Blazy. However, Ouchikh disagreed with the left on European and social questions, and he left the SP in the mid-2000s,[3] after sustained at the 2005 congress the motion for a left alternative.[4]

Evolution to the right

In 2008, Ouchikh joined the Rassemblement for the Independence and Sovereignty of France (RIF), of which he became vice-president, and participated in the creation of the party Sovereignty, Identity and Freedoms in 2011.[5] After the resignation of Paul-Marie Coûteaux in 2014, he was elected acting president of the SIEL. Finally, on 25 October, a new Congress elected him president.[6] He is a director of the Rassemblement bleu Marine[7] and a cultural advisor to the president of Front National.[8]

Regarding the presidential election of 2017, Ouchikh "supports the candidacy of Marine Le Pen while watching with kindness Renaud Camus",[9] and also supported Jean-Frédéric Poisson, president of the Christian Democratic Party, in the Republican presidential primary.[10]

However, denouncing "the hegemonic will of Florian Philippot", the SIEL ended its alliance with the FN in the Rassemblement bleu Marine in November 2016.[11][12]

He is also a councillor and agglomeration of Gonesse and a regional councillor of Île-de-France.[13]

The administrative court of Cergy-Pontoise invalidated his municipal campaign accounts on 27 October 2014 for late justification of certain invoices. The State Council invalidated the decision in December 2016, allowing the reimbursement of his campaign expenses.[14]

In 2017, Ouchikh was a candidate in the ninth district of Val-d'Oise.[15] He finished 13th with 0.68% of the votes.[16]

In 2019, he ran with Renaud Camus for the European parliament elections: "we shall not leave Europe, we shall make Africa leave Europe," as they wrote to define their agenda.[17][18]

Religious beliefs

A member of a poor Muslim family, Ouchikh converted to Catholicism[19][20] during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, after being touched by the faith of the participants in World Youth Day in 1997. Baptized by Father Philippe Dorizon, he received confirmation from Mgr Jean-Yves Riocreux.[21][22] He claims to have acquired during his catechumen "an indispensable spiritual teaching" but also to have discovered "a Christian civilization of which [he] did not suspect until very recently the infinite wealth of".[23]

In September 2016, he founded the SOS Churches of France association, intended to fight for the defense of the Christian heritage of France.[24]

References

  1. ^ "Actes-Types.com Mobile – OUCHIKH Karim – Avocat". mobile.actes-types.com (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  2. ^ Dubois, Christophe (4 September 2000). "Concorde : la lamelle est tombée d'un DC-10". Le Parisien (in French). Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  3. ^ "Numéros PDF : Numéro 921 – Format PDF". www.monde-vie.com (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  4. ^ "Souveraineté, Identité et Libertés (SIEL) — France Politique". www.france-politique.fr (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  5. ^ "Karim Ouchikh : Ancien socialiste, je pense que Marine Le Pen est la seule qui puisse encore sauver la France". Riposte Laïque (in French). 19 March 2012. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  6. ^ "Extrême-droite : nouveau président pour le SIEL, parti satellite du FN". RTL.fr (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  7. ^ Larquier, Ségolène de (7 October 2015). "Ces musulmans séduits par le FN". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  8. ^ "Qu'est-ce que le SIEL, le parti d'extrême droite de la nouvelle secrétaire nationale de l'UMP ?". Le Monde.fr (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  9. ^ Ouchikh, Karim. "SIEL – Souveraineté, Identité Et Libertés – Communiqué du SIEL sur la candidature de Renaud Camus aux élections présidentielles de 2017" (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  10. ^ Salvi, Ellen. "Avec Poisson, l'extrême droite s'incruste dans la primaire de la droite". Mediapart (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  11. ^ "Le Siel met fin à son alliance avec le Front national". LExpress.fr (in French). 6 November 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  12. ^ "Politique. Le Siel met fin à son alliance avec le FN". Ouest-France.fr (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  13. ^ "Gonesse : le compte de campagne de Karim Ouchikh devant le Conseil d'Etat". Comptes publics (in French). 15 December 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  14. ^ "Gonesse : Karim Ouchikh sera bien remboursé de ses frais de campagne des municipales". leparisien.fr (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  15. ^ interieur.gouv.fr
  16. ^ "Résultats Législatives 2017 – Val-d'Oise – 9ème circonscription du Val-d'Oise – Zivka PARK élue au 2nd tour des élections législatives". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  17. ^ AFP (4 April 2019). "Européennes: l'écrivain Renaud Camus en tête de liste". Le Figaro. Retrieved 4 August 2019. «L'Europe, il ne faut pas en sortir, il faut en sortir l'Afrique» [...] «Jamais une occupation n'a pris fin sans le départ de l'occupant. Jamais une colonisation ne s'est achevée sans le retrait des colonisateurs et des colons. La Ligne claire, et seule à l'être, c'est celle qui mène du ferme constat du grand remplacement (...) à l'exigence de la remigration», ajoutent-ils.
  18. ^ AFP (9 April 2019). "Renaud Camus, le chantre du "grand remplacement", tête de liste aux européennes". Le Parisien (in French). Retrieved 4 August 2019.
  19. ^ Ouchikh, Karim (21 March 2018). "'Comme beaucoup de catholiques, je ne comprendrais pas l'inaction, la carence ou le laxisme du diocèse de Seine-Saint-Denis'". Boulevard Voltaire (in French). Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  20. ^ "Karim Ouchikh : " la prééminence culturelle et historique du christianisme doit être affirmée sans état d'âme "". Le Rouge & le Noir (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  21. ^ "Karim Ouchikh témoigne de sa conversion". Le Salon Beige (in French). 22 March 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  22. ^ Boulogne, Edouard. "Karim Ouchikh évoque sa conversion au catholicisme, ou le diocèse de Guadeloupe n'est pas totalement étranger. – Le Scrutateur". Le Scrutateur. (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  23. ^ "Karim Ouchikh : " le culte catholique est victime d'un mépris latent de la part de nos élites. " | Christianophobie Hebdo". www.christianophobiehebdo.fr (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  24. ^ "Naissance de SOS Églises de France". Présent (in French). 4 November 2016. Retrieved 19 November 2019.