PARIS: France is increasing security at religious sites as the interior minister said Tuesday that the country faces a “very high” risk of terrorist threats, amid mounting geopolitical tensions following the beheading of a teacher who showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
French diplomats are trying to quell anger in Turkey and Arab nations amid protests against France and calls to boycott French products in response to the president Emmanuel macronThe firm stance against Islamism after the beheading of October 16.
European allies have backed Macron, while Muslim-majority countries are angered by his defense of caricatures of the prophets that they consider sacrilegious.
France’s national police have called for increased security at religious sites around the holiday of All Saints next weekend, and have particularly pointed to online threats by extremists against moderate French Christians and Muslims.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on France-Inter radio that the terrorist threat remains “very high, because we have many enemies inside and outside the country.”
He reiterated plans to try to dissolve Muslim groups that are seen as selling dangerous radical views or having too much foreign funding.
He accused Turkey and Pakistan in particular of “meddling in the internal affairs of France”. “There is a battle against an Islamist ideology. We must not back down,” he said. But he insisted that “the Muslim faith has its place in the republic.”
Some members of France’s largely moderate Muslim community are calling for calm and defending the freedom of expression that the beheaded teacher sought to demonstrate.
The cartoons of the prophet deeply upset many Muslims around the world. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led the charge against France, questioning Macron’s state of mind, and France called its ambassador in Turkey for consultations, a first in Franco-Turkish diplomatic relations.
Tensions between the two countries have increased in recent months due to Turkish actions in Syria, Libya and the Caucasus Mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh. But this new dispute has quickly spread to other countries in Europe and the Muslim world.
Anti-France protests have taken place from Bangladesh to the Gaza Strip, Kuwaiti stores removed French yogurt and sparkling water bottles from their shelves, the University of Qatar canceled a French culture week, and Pakistan’s parliament passed a resolution condemning the publication of cartoons of the prophet. .
EU officials warn that Turkey’s stance could further damage its relations with key trading partners and its long-stalled efforts to join the EU.
“A boycott will only further alienate Turkey from the EU,” European Commission spokesman Balazs Ujvaris said on Tuesday, insisting that Turkey must abide by the terms of its trade agreement on goods and goods with the EU.
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