[ad_1]
BEIRUT (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that it was not his place to judge the decision by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to republish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, saying France has freedom of expression.
But Macron, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said it is incumbent on French citizens to show mutual courtesy and respect, and to avoid a “hate dialogue.”
The magazine republished the cartoons on the eve of a Paris trial of alleged accomplices in a 2015 attack on the magazine’s offices by armed Islamist militants that killed 12 people.
When first published by Charlie Hebdo and other publications, the cartoons unleashed a wave of anger in the Muslim world. For Muslims, any representation of the Prophet is blasphemous.
Before the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices, online militants had warned that the magazine would pay to publish the cartoons.
“It is never the place of a president of the Republic to judge the editorial choice of a journalist or newsroom, never. Because we have freedom of the press,” Macron said.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, written by Christian Lowe; edited by Dan Grebler)
[ad_2]
