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TEHRAN – As French President Emanuel Macron intensifies his anti-Muslim campaign, Muslim world leaders and analysts are focusing on the French president’s goal of inciting hatred against Muslims.
Leaders and people of Muslim countries around the world are protesting Macron’s reckless drive to support what he called the French “right to blasphemy” against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). On Saturday, France withdrew its ambassador to Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his French counterpart needs mental treatment for his views of Islam.
“What is the problem of this person named Macron with Muslims and Islam? Macron needs treatment on a mental level, ”said the Turkish president in what appeared to be a criticism of the French president’s recent promise to fight Islamism.
He added: “What else can you say to a head of state who does not understand freedom of belief and who behaves in this way with millions of people who live in his country and who are members of a different faith.”
Erdogan and Macron have been at odds in recent months over a number of issues, including a dispute over territorial waters between Turkey and Greece, the conflict in Libya and the Armenian separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. Macron’s support for blasphemous cartoons against the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has only exacerbated discord between the two presidents who, at times, attacked each other personally.
“Outrage and insult are not a method,” Macron’s office said in response to the Turkish president’s comments.
France’s relations with the Muslim world took a dangerous turn in early October when Macron delivered a speech to counter what he described as the ways in which radical Islamism infiltrates French society. Macron also focused on what he called “Islamist separatism,” outlining a plan to “build an Islam in France that can be an Islam of the Enlightenment.”
Macron’s plan includes training magnets in France rather than continuing to import them from Algeria, Morocco and Turkey.
“Islam is a religion that is experiencing a crisis all over the world,” said the French president.
Macron’s speech has drawn attention in France and beyond, as it was a clear departure from his political platform for the past few years, which was based on liberal values and freedom of expression for all social groups in French society. . The speech also sparked a wave of outrage among Muslims in France and the Muslim world.
While the debate over Macron’s new approach to Muslims in France was still ongoing, the president defended the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that helped inspire two French-born men to ride. a deadly attack in January 2015 on the newspaper. newsroom. 17 people were killed in the attack, which marked the beginning of a wave of violence by the ISIS terror group in Europe.
In a provocative move, the newspaper republished the insulting cartoons in September as the trial of 14 people for attacks on the newspaper and a kosher supermarket began.
The newspaper’s insistence on republishing the insulting cartoons once again rekindled the debate over the relationship between freedom of faith and freedom of expression. This debate was further aggravated after the murder of Samuel Paty, a French high school teacher who was murdered by a teenager in a Paris suburb after showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoon in class.
Rather than curb hatred of Muslims in France, Macron decided to keep cracking down on Muslims who were fed up with the insults against their prophet. Of course, Muslims around the world denounced the murder of the French teacher, who was posthumously awarded the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor.
Macron, who is seen by some as exacerbating hatred of Muslims, tried to use Paty’s assassination to further his previously planned campaign against Muslims in France.
“They killed him precisely because he embodied the Republic,” Macron said of Paty, adding: “They killed him because the Islamists want our future. They know that with quiet heroes like him, they will never have it. “
In early September, Macron vowed to counter “Islamic separatism” while defending the right to blasphemy.
Speaking at a ceremony in September celebrating the democratic history of France and the naturalization of new citizens, he said: “You don’t choose a part of France. You choose France … The Republic will never allow any separatist adventure. “
Freedom in France, Macron said, includes: “The freedom to believe or not to believe. But this is inseparable from freedom of expression to the right to blasphemy ”.
But critics have questioned the idea of free speech in France. They say that if ridiculing and blaspheming a prophet worshiped by more than a billion and a half believers around the world is considered part of free speech, then why scientifically investigate or question the Holocaust, much less ridicule it? it is not part of freedom of expression. This may be the reason why some analysts accuse Macron of pursuing double standards in dealing with a part of the French population that is known to be marginalized and deprived of its basic rights. France is home to the largest Muslim population in Europe.
Macron himself has acknowledged that French governments have marginalized Muslim citizens.
“We build a concentration of misery and difficulties, we concentrate populations according to origin and social environment,” he acknowledged. “We create neighborhoods where the promise of the Republic was never fulfilled and where these most radical forms [of Islamism] they became sources of hope. “
However, Macron promised to attack these concentrations. “What we should attack is Islamist separatism,” the French president said.
Following Paty’s assassination, Macron has redoubled his Islamophobic agenda, voicing his support for insulting Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
Speaking at a televised memorial service for the slain teacher, Macron told viewers that France “will not give up our cartoons.”
These comments sparked a wave of outrage across the Muslim world, prompting people in some Muslim countries to launch a campaign with the aim of boycotting French products. Twitter users in the Arab world called for a boycott of these products using Arab hashtags such as “Boycott French Products”, “Macron Insults the Prophet” and “Our Prophet is a Red Line”. These hashtags have been trending in many Arab countries in recent days.
Twitter users also prepared a list of dozens of French companies that want to be boycotted by Muslims due to Macron’s insult against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
“Macron has deliberately hurt the feelings of 1.8 billion Muslims by attacking Islam and our Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Boycotting any French product is a small gift that we can give him and his followers, ”Suhaib Sadiq tweeted, while posting an image showing the logos of many French firms.
Some Twitter users also posted images showing supermarkets in some Arab countries like Kuwait and Qatar that are empty of French products.
“Qatar’s flagship supermarket, Al Meera, has removed all French products from its shelves after calls for a boycott grew louder in the Arab and Muslim world, the corporation announced on Friday,” tweeted a Twitter user called Gentleman.
Al-Reem, another Twitter user, said: “I invite you to boycott French products after the French government supported cartoons insulting our prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.”
Religious and political leaders in Arab countries also condemned Macron’s approach to Muslims, saying it is damaging Franco-Islamic relations and instigating hatred for political and partisan achievements.
The Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said in a statement that it has followed the current practice of publishing satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and that it was “surprised by such an unexpected speech by certain French politicians, which it considers to be detrimental to Muslim-French relations, incite hatred and only serve partisan political interests. “
“The General Secretariat says that it will always condemn the practices of blasphemy and of insulting the prophets of Islam, Christianity and Judaism,” the OIC statement said, adding that it had previously condemned the brutal murder of French citizen Samuel Paty.
Analysts and political leaders also agree with the OCI’s assessment that Macron is politically exploiting the idea of free speech to create a fabricated crisis with Muslim citizens of France in order to mobilize public opinion before France’s presidential elections of 2022.
According to a Politico report, since the beginning of his presidency, Macron has been pressured by critics, mostly from the right and far right, to address the security, cultural and social challenges posed by so-called “radical Islamism.”
The issue will largely figure in public debate until the 2022 presidential election, where Macron is likely to once again face Marine Le Pen, in a country struggling to address the issue without reliving colonial wounds or leaning toward Islamophobia and racism. ”Politico said.
Erdogan also accused Macron of intensifying anti-Muslim sentiments ahead of the 2022 elections, adding that France will witness a presidential election in about a year, which will determine Macron’s fate.
“I think his end is not far because he didn’t benefit France at all, so how can he benefit himself?” said the Turkish president.
