French prez Macron's strong response to criticism: 'Fighting terrorism in name of Islam'

Reacting to the worldwide debate over his remarks after the horrific attacks in France, and the protests against him in the Muslim nations, French president Emmanuel Macron said that there is no stigmatization of any religion in his country. On Sunday, Macron explained that France is fighting with terrorism "in name of Islam, and not Islam itself", and his statements should be taken in the same context. 

Hitting out at the campaign against him on social media, Macron said that he has heard a lot of unacceptable things about France in the past few days and also seen people supporting lies, he clearly stated that  France is committed to peace and to live together but his government says no to extremism. Macron explained that secularism has never killed anyone and stressed that his country has no problem with any religion in particular. 

"What we are doing right now in France is fighting terrorism that is being committed in the name of Islam, not Islam itself. Contrary to much of what I have heard and seen on social media in recent days, our country has no problem with any religion. All of these religions are freely practiced on his land. There is no stigmatization: France is committed to peace and to live together. The extremists teach that France should not be respected. They teach that women are not equal to men, and that little girls should not have the same rights as little boys. I tell you very clearly: Not in our country," Macron said in a series of tweets in French as well as in Urdu.

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How the Muslim nations reacted to Macron's remark?

Sharp criticism of Macron came from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said that the French President has "lost his mind." The tensions escalated when the Charlie Hebdo magazine published Erdogen's caricature with "Ooh, the prophet!" written over it. Erdogan dismissed the cartoon as a "disgusting attack". 

Pakistan also reacted sharply with even calling back its French envoy while making a laughing stock of itself, as the country doesn't  have any envoy in France. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that the seeds of hate that are being cultivated will polarise the society and have serious consequences. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif also criticised the French President's statements and wrote on Twitter: “Muslims are the primary victims of the ‘cult of hatred’ – empowered by colonial regimes & exported by their own clients. Insulting 1.9B Muslims- & their sanctities – for the abhorrent crimes of such extremists is an opportunistic abuse of freedom of speech. It only fuels extremism.”

Even in war-torn Syria and in Libya‘s capital Tripoli, pictures of Macron were burned, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor. Palestinians also demonstrated against French President and said that his statements are “an attack and an insult against Islam”. Jordan‘s Islamic Affairs Minister Mohammed al-Khalayleh said that “insulting” prophets was “not an issue of personal freedom but a crime that encourages violence.”

However, amongst these Muslim majority nations, Saudi Arabia condemned the cartoons and dismissed attempts to link Islam with terrorism but extended support to the French President.

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Attacks in France and Macron's comment

On Saturday, a Greek Orthodox priest was shot outside a church in Lyon, two days after a Tunisian-origin man armed with a knife attacked worshippers in a French church in the in Mediterranean city of Nice and killed three. The attacks are taking place in less than two months after the beheading of a teacher Samuel Paty who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class after the images were re-published by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which was also targeted in a 2015 terror attack. French authorities have attributed the attacks to Muslim extremists.

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Macron had defended the Charlie Hebdo magazine and spoken in favour of caricatures, drawing widespread criticism from Muslim majority nations, even before Payty's killing. After the killing, he said that Paty was killed, "because he embodied the Republic which comes alive every day in classrooms, the freedom that is conveyed and perpetuated in schools. Samuel Paty was killed because Islamists want our future and because they know that with quiet heroes like him, they will never have it." 

He had opined that the right to free speech included the "right to blasphemy", and pledged to fight against “Islamic separatism” in France. Macron maintained, “We will continue, we will defend the freedom that you taught so well and we will bring secularism... “we will not give up cartoons, drawings, even if others back down”. Paty has been posthumously awarded the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest honour as seven people have been charged for his killing.

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