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Of: TT
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Photo: Presidential Press Service / AP / TT
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Stock Photography.
The EU condemns the statement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that French President Emmanuel Macron would need a “psychic test”.
At the same time, demands for a boycott of French products are increasing in the Arab world.
Erdogan’s statement, which he reiterated on Sunday, was a reaction to Macron’s criticism of “Islamist separatism” in recent weeks. After the notorious murder in mid-October of a French teacher who, for educational purposes, showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to his students, Macron said “Islamists want our future.” And just a few weeks earlier, the French president said that “Islam is a religion that is in crisis throughout the world.”
Statement of conviction
The EU Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, condemns Erdogan’s statement, which he describes as unacceptable. France, in turn, has responded by summoning its Turkish ambassador for consultations.
According to Erdogan’s collaborator Fahrettin Altun, “insulting cartoons” of the Prophet Muhammad are used to intimidate Muslims in Europe, on the pretext that it is a question of freedom of expression.
“Everything we see about Muslims in European culture today is eerily similar to the demonization of European Jews in the 1920s,” he wrote on Twitter.
Boycott goods
At the same time, demands for a boycott of French products are increasing in the Arab world. The Al Meera department store chain in Qatar, which competes with its French counterparts Monoprix and Carrefour, said in a statement on Friday that it was recalling French products from its stores for the time being. Kuwaiti stores have also removed French products from their shelves.
Jordan said Saturday that he condemned the continued publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The country’s opposition party, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), goes one step further and calls on the country’s residents to boycott French products.
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