cut down in size, but soon the building fell into disrepair, so the Ottoman government decided to finance its reconstruction and extension. In 1914, an architectural design was put forward for a more prominent building with a dome and clear “Islamic” characteristics evident, but the First World War blocked the implementation of the project. In 1923, however, an inter-ministerial commission of Muslim affairs discussed the work for completing a Muslim cemetery in Père Lachaise. It concluded that it was not practical to build a mosque in the cemetery, as they were looking to build a mosque in the district of the Jardin des Plantes. 1895 and 1915–16 projects The first project for a true mosque in Paris was envisaged without success in 1895 by the Committee of French Africa set up by Théophile Delcassé, Jules Cambon, the Prince Bonaparte and the Prince d’Arenberg. An article in La Presse from 12 January 1896 was, however, optimistic about this project, specifically for a mosque to be constructed on the Quai d'Orsay, notably with the financial support of the Ottoman sultan, the Viceroy of Egypt, and the Sultan of Morocco. The journalist Paul Bourdarie justified the construction of the Paris Mosque in the newspaper La Revue indigène: Such a proposal cannot be forgotten and lost [to history]. It reflects too much the political outlook that France ought to follow towards her Muslim sons, and which should translate above all into acts of political and administrative equality and above all into gestures of sympathy and goodwill. From its foundation in 1906, La Revue indigène has put forward plans to resume this project from which the reforms which she proposes will be recommended and completed with success. The members of the Algerian Muslim delegation in Paris who came to Paris in 1912, Dr. Benthami, Dr. Moussa, the lawyer Mr. Mokhtar Hadj Saïd, etc., recall that the question was addressed at that moment in the course of the meetings which took place at the headquarters of La Revue indigène. In the meantime, Mr. Christian Cherfils, the Islamophile and author of a work on Napoléon and Islam, recommended the erection of a mosque in Paris. Others, without a doubt, view the same construction as both desirable and possible. Bourdarie evoked, in his article, the contradiction between the alliance with England which worked to dominate the majority of countries in the Muslim world while the French interest was