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President Emmanuel Macron is by no means popular in all fields of France. But when his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, questions Macron’s mental health, the French closely follow their president.
The right-wing newspaper Le Figaro calls for a demonstration against protests and boycotts.
“The burning blue-white-red flag is not from France, but from freedom,” writes lead writer Philippe Gélie.
The French business community is also behind the country’s political leadership, even though its products are at risk of being boycotted in the Muslim world as a result of Macron’s harsh attacks on Islamism.
– It is about defending the values of the (French) Republic. Sometimes principles must take precedence over profit, says Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux of the business organization Medef to the RMC radio channel.
Laws in progress
Like all of France, President Macron has reacted harshly to the brutal assassination of teacher Samuel Paty, who was slit his throat by a young Islamist extremist on October 16 for showing a satire on the Prophet Muhammad.
“He was assassinated because Islamists want to steal our future,” Macron said at a televised memorial service last week.
Already a couple of weeks earlier, he warned of “Islamist separatism” in a linear speech in which he promised tougher measures against extremism, but also the hope of creating the “Islam of the Enlightenment” in France.
Important bills on, among other things, religious symbols and public support for organizations will be presented in early December.
Election question 2022?
Dealing with Islamism may well be a difficult electoral issue when Macron tries to be re-elected president in just over 1.5 years.
By promising tougher control, Macron can hope to win votes from the right, to avoid voters on that side instead of switching to Marine Le Pen and the ultra-nationalist National Assembly.
At the same time, the French left is accused of being too lenient with extremism.
“The Islamist left is wreaking havoc on universities,” Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said in a radio interview on Thursday.
However, the left is angry. The Communist Party’s PCF reacts harshly after some scribbled “Companion” at their party headquarters in Paris, something very sensitive given that the same word was used widely for those who collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.
– This bears the signature of the extreme right. What we are saying is clear: we must fight wholeheartedly against Islamism, which is a form of fascism, PCF spokesman Ian Brossat tells the daily Libération.
Victor Nummelin / TT
History and geography professor Samuel Paty was killed a few hundred meters from his workplace in the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on October 16 and his head was later cut off.
The alleged perpetrator, Abdullakh Anzoroven, an 18-year-old Russian of Chechen origin, was shot and killed by the police.
A few days before the murder, Paty had shown cartoons of Muhammad from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during a lesson on freedom of expression, after first offering Muslim students to close their eyes or leave the classroom if they did not want to look.
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