Macron slams terror attack coverage calling France racist, says they 'legitimise violence'

French President Emmanuel Macron criticised the coverage of the extremist attacks on the European nation by the American media, according to a New York Times column. Macron reportedly called the NYT correspondent to denounce the English-language coverage of France’s stance on the recent attacks and argued that the reports amount to “legitimizing” violence. The French President told NYT in a column published on November 15 that when the country was attacked five years ago, all nations offered support. However, Macron said several newspapers have targetted the problem as declaring France “racist” and “Islamophobic”.

"So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values... when I see them legitimizing this violence, and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost."

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‘Foreign media failed…’

In the NYT article, after conversing with Macron, the correspondent said that French President argued about how “foreign media failed” in understanding the secularism in France which is also a pillar of nation’s policy and society. He said “foreign media failed to understand 'laicite.'" In the widespread outrage over France’s dealing with the terror attacks that took place in the past month, several Muslim majority states have burned Macron’s posters and France’s flag while also calling for boycotting French goods. 

From gruesome stabbing inside a Nice church that killed three, a suspicious package being found inside St martin Church in Metz, the unrest in France roots from the October 16 ‘terror attack’ when an 18-year-old beheaded French history teacher, Samuel Paty for showing Prophet Muhammad’s caricatures to his pupils. While paying tribute to the slain man, the French President had defended the nation’s brand of secularism along with its long-standing tradition of satire. He has vowed to “not give up cartoons” and added, “I am not going to change our laws because they shock elsewhere.”

“The fight of our generation in Europe will be a combat for our freedoms,” Macron said, adding that he believed they are being "overturned”.

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