Faced with a call for the boycott of French products in certain Muslim countries, President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed, Sunday October 25, 2020, his values and his rejection of “hate speech”.
French products withdrawn from stores from stores, photos of Emmanuel Macron burned, all over the Middle East, expressions of anger against France and its president have multiplied.
Through French symbols, it is the recent declarations of the President of the Republic about Islam and the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad, who are targeted, in the wake of the assassination of Samuel Paty by an Islamist terrorist.
“We will not give up caricatures,” said the President of the Republic on Wednesday in his tribute to the teacher, targeted after showing a drawing of the prophet published by Charlie Hebdo.
For three days, on social networks, calls to no longer buy French products have been relayed. In Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Palestine, etc. everywhere, French products have the target of a boycott and sometimes removed from stores.
On Saturday, around 200 people massaged in front of the residence of the French ambassador to Israel. And, in the Gaza Strip, demonstrators burned photos of the French president.
In Tunisia and more specifically in El Kamour, an anti-France parade gathered yesterday, a few dozen people, but other Tunisian Internet users criticized the means employed to defend the Prophet, derived the boycott attempts and defended freedom of expression.
Still in the Maghreb, the leader of the Algerian Islamist Party Front of Justice and Development Abdallah Djaballah called to the boycott of French products and asked for the convocation of the French ambassador.
In Morocco, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the kingdom “vigorously condemned the continuation of the publication of outrageous caricatures to Islam and the Prophet”, denouncing “acts that reflect the immaturity of their authors” and affirming “that the freedom of some stops where the freedom and beliefs of others begin.”
Yesterday, the Quai d’Orsay once again denounced “a hateful and slanderous propaganda against France” from Turkey, and deplored “the absence of any official brand of conviction or solidarity of the Turkish authorities after the terrorist attack of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine”.
The boycott calls of French products and to demonstrate, launched in the Muslim world after recent words by President Emmanuel Macron on Islam, are “without any object and must cease immediately, as well as all the attacks against our country, instrumentalized by a radical minority”, called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday.
In its press release, the ministry said that the bill and the president’s statements are only aimed at “fighting radical Islamism, and doing so with Muslims in France, which are an integral part of the French Society, History and Republic”.
The Quai d’Orsay says it has mobilized the French diplomatic network “to recall and explain (to other countries) the positions of France in matters of fundamental freedoms and refusal of hatred”. Paris also asked the countries concerned to “dissociate themselves from any call to boycott or any attack on our country, (to) support our businesses and (to) ensure the security of our compatriots abroad”.
