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- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan led the backlash against France and President Emmanuel Macron in a heated showdown with Muslim nations.
- Macron defended France’s freedom of expression and secular values after the murder of a school teacher who had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
- Erdogan called for a boycott of French products, accusing Macron, who said he needed “mind controls”, of making fun of religion.
Ankara – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined calls for a boycott of French products on Monday, escalating the confrontation between France and Muslim countries over Islam and freedom of expression.
Erdogan has led the charge against President Emmanuel Macron for his strong defense of the right to make fun of religion following the murder of a French school teacher who had shown his class cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
On Monday, the Turkish leader added his voice to calls in the Arab world for citizens to reject French products.
“Never give credit to French-labeled products, don’t buy them,” said Erdogan, who caused a furore over the weekend by declaring that Macron needed “mind controls”, during a televised speech in Ankara.
After Turkey was accused by France of being silent on the killing of Samuel Paty on October 16, Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, denounced the “monstrous murder” on Monday, adding that “nothing” could justify the attack.
French products have already been removed from supermarket shelves in Qatar and Kuwait, among other Gulf states, while in Syria people have burned photographs of Macron, and French flags have been set ablaze in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
France’s largest employers’ federation on Monday urged companies to “resist blackmail” over boycott calls.
European support
The October 16 beheading of high school teacher Samuel Paty by a Chechen extremist caused a deep shock in France.
Paty had shown her students some of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in which 12 people were massacred in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2015.
Depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are considered offensive by many Muslims, but in France such cartoons have been identified with a proud secular tradition dating back to the Revolution.
In the wake of Paty’s assassination, Macron issued a passionate defense of France’s freedom of expression and secular values, vowing that the country “will not give up cartoons.”
As the backlash over France’s backlash widens, European leaders rallied behind Macron.
“They are slanderous comments that are completely unacceptable, particularly in the context of the horrific murder of French professor Samuel Paty by an Islamist fanatic,” said Steffen Seibert, a spokeswoman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The prime ministers of Italy, the Netherlands and Greece also expressed their support for France, as did the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“President Erdogan’s words addressing President @EmmanuelMacron are unacceptable,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte tweeted, adding that the Netherlands is “for freedom of expression and against extremism and radicalism.”
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tweeted: “Personal insults do not help the positive agenda that the EU wants to have with Turkey, but it pushes solutions further.”
Muslims treated ‘like Jews’
Erdogan, a self-proclaimed defender of Muslims around the world, on Monday compared the treatment of Muslims in Europe with that of Jews before World War II, saying they were the target of a “lynching campaign.”
“You are fascists in a real sense, you are in a real sense the links in the chain of Nazism,” he said.
“European leaders should tell the French president to stop his campaign of hatred” against Muslims, Erdogan added.
France has been the target of a series of jihadist attacks that have killed more than 250 people since 2015 and have led to a profound examination of conscience about the impact of Islam on the country’s core values.
Some of the attackers have cited cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, as well as France’s ban on wearing the Islamic veil in public among their motives.
Several suspected Islamist radicals have been arrested in dozens of raids since Paty’s murder, and the government has decided to shut down about 50 organizations with suspected links to those people.
Earlier this month, Macron unveiled a plan to defend France’s secular values against a trend of “Islamist separatism”, describing Islam as a religion “in crisis.”
Anger in the Islamic world
His stance has fueled tensions with Turkey in particular. On Saturday, Paris announced that it was withdrawing its envoy to Ankara after Erdogan questioned Macron’s sanity.
But the French leader has remained defiant, tweeting: “We will always stand on the side of human dignity and universal values.”
Macron has also drawn criticism in other Muslim-majority countries, including Pakistan and Morocco.
Libya’s UN-recognized Government of National Accord also “strongly condemned” his comments and demanded an apology.
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah have also spoken out against France.
The protesters also met in front of the French embassy in Baghdad with a clergyman demanding an apology from the French leader.
And in Algiers, the Islamic High Council condemned Macron’s “virulent campaign” against Muslims.
More protests are planned Tuesday in Jordan’s capital Amman.
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