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FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
PARIS – After having expressed doubts about Emmanuel Macron’s mental health several times over the weekend, yesterday Turkish President Recep Erdogan launched accusations of fascism and Nazism directed at European leaders: A lynching campaign similar to that led to carried out against European Jews before World War II, the Turkish leader added during a speech in the capital Ankara, then launched another call, the first by a head of state, to boycott French products.
European leaders have lined up in defense of Macron and France, from the Italian Giuseppe Conte, unacceptable words, to Chancellor Merkel. In the Arab-Muslim world, from Amman to Gaza, anti-Macron demonstrations continued, with supermarket shelves emptied of cheese and other French products.
We will not give up cartoons about Muhammad, President Macron had said. last Wednesday, during the emotional tribute to Samuel Paty. Macron reiterated France’s attachment to freedom of expression, after teacher Paty was beheaded at school by an Islamic terrorist who wanted to punish him for showing some cartoons in class. Charlie hebdo. But Turkish President Erdogan does not mention that tragedy. And it focuses on the Mohammed cartoons, as in fact the governments of Morocco and Pakistan – also tough on France – and more indirectly Qatar and Kuwait have officially done, which have supported boycotts of French products.
The president of the French Council of Muslim Worship, Mohammed Moussaoui, The authorities’ main interlocutor on Islam, responded to Erdogan denying him the right to speak on behalf of French Muslims: France is a great country, Muslim citizens are not persecuted. Erdogan’s attacks on Macron emerge in a context of bad relations for months, on various international policy dossiers: from the Turkish interventions in Syria and Libya to Macron’s words about NATO in a state of brain death, since the accident in the Eastern Mediterranean with French ships deployed in defense of Greece up to Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan against Armenia, near Paris.
Then there are the internal difficulties of Erdogan, weakened by the economic crisis and a cultural revolution. towards the political Islam that does not take off. The Turkish leader then poses as a defender of the umma, the community of believers in all countries.
But there is also a more specific reason linked to Macron’s new action, that already last February in Mulhouse criticized consular Islam, which is the network of mosques and preachers based in France but financed by foreign Islamic powers: 151 imams paid by Turkey (mostly Turkish officials), 120 by Algeria and 20 for Morocco.
Macron wants to fight against Islamist separatism and build a national Islam away from foreign influence. Erdogan and the others do not tolerate it, and with their rhetoric they run the risk of causing very serious consequences on the cohesion of French society. While Paris insists on the difference between the many French Muslims (who must be defended) and the few radical Islamists (who must be fought), Erdogan cancels all the distinctions and credits the existence of a generalized Islamophobia. Macron, who only fights extremists, is dangerously known as the enemy of all Muslims.
October 26, 2020 (change October 26, 2020 | 22:10)
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