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Three weeks ago, Emmanuel Macron came under fire from French conservatives after suggesting that teaching Arabic in schools could simply combat radical Islam.
Less than a month later, the French president finds himself mired in a diplomatic stalemate with Muslim countries dissatisfied with Islam’s crackdown on Islam in their blatantly secular republic.
Macron’s U-turn follows the beheading of instructor Samuel Paty, who was killed after presenting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to freedom of expression scholars.
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French Freedom of Expression Rally After Charlie Hebdo Teacher Beheaded: Why Did He Attack Satirical Magazine?Charlie Hebdo cartoonist will no longer draw Muhammad
Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine whose ten workers were murdered in 2012 after publishing photographs of the Prophet Muhammad, also stoked anger by publishing a cool animated film of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the cover of its online edition Tuesday night. .
Erdogan, a self-proclaimed defender of Sunni Muslims, has been a leading critic of Macron’s comments, describing the treatment of Muslims in France as “a lynching crusade similar to that which opposed Jews in Europe before World War II. “
The claim that Islam is in “crisis,” Erdogan added, “is a sign of a particularly harmful procedure that is generating very serious effects for European Muslims. “
The Turkish president rallied through Islamic leaders from across the Middle East, and the front page of a radical Iranian newspaper called Macron the “Demon of Paris. “
On the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, they denounced him as a leader who “worships Satan” and burned his image. “Tens of thousands of people” have joined Erdogan’s calls for a “boycott of French products,” the BBC reports.
“Macron is one of the few leaders who worship Satan,” Ataur Rahman, a senior Islami Andolan leader, told protesters, while the group’s leader, Nesar Uddin, described France as “the enemy of Muslims. ” and added: “Those who constitute them are also our enemies.
France has recalled its ambassador from Turkey and issued “security warnings for French citizens of Muslim-majority states,” The Guardian reports. But the planned dissolution of the pro-Hamas organization known as Sheikh Yassin, which the government says is “directly involved” in Paty’s murder, will prolong the conflict.
Clash of values
The relationship between France and its million Muslim citizens is complicated.
Tensions have been “latent” since September, when Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on the eve of the trial of 14 other people involved in the terrorist attack on its offices. But the challenge goes beyond the covers of satirical magazines.
France is determined to maintain its culture of secularism – or secularism – and has a “history of complaints from all religions,” says Vox. Its culture of political cartoons has opposed Islamic prohibitions on idolatry and triggered the murders of Charlie Hebdo and Paty staff.
The country’s anti-religious trend, “originally designed to counter the strength of the Roman Catholic Church,” says the Telegraph, is finding a new target. At times, the country “has struggled to come to terms with Muslims as they arrived,” Vox says. leading to disputes over the wearing of headscarves in public schools and in professional settings.
“We are the result of our history: those values of freedom, secularism and democracy can only remain words,” a protester in Paris told French television during a demonstration in Paty’s honor. And France’s unwavering commitment to those values was manifested in the statements of politicians after the assassination.
But to protect them, Macron will have to deal with a challenge that Politco says has been a “lightning rod” in France for decades: how to crack down on Islamist extremists without isolating the wider Muslim network and the Islamic world.
Joe Evans is the global news editor at TheWeek. co. uk. He joined TheWeek. co. uk in 2019 and held roles including associate editor and interim editor-in-chief before taking up his current role in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Podcast Week Unwrapped, discussing politics and foreign affairs.
Prior to joining The Week, she worked as a freelance journalist covering the United Kingdom and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of reports on Brexit and the Irish border led to him being nominated for the Hostwriter Award in 2019. Before moving to London, she lived and worked in Cambodia, where she directed communications for a non-governmental organization and worked as a journalist covering the South East. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the City, University of London, and in the past studied English literature at the University of Manchester.