Opinion

Lighting a candle to God and another to the devil

photo_camera Emmanuel Macron

A calm French president with measured words we have seen on the screens of the Qatari channel, Al-Jazeera. Calming anger, showing that he can unite people without losing his firmness, that is the difficult exercise to which Emmanuel Macron devoted himself, noting the fact that his words have been distorted, mistranslated, misinterpreted "I am not opposed to Islam or Muslims and my position on the cartoons has been distorted (...) My role is to calm things down, but also to protect the right to freedom of expression.    

Since the publication of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed last September by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, France has been in the firing line of Islamist terrorism. For several years now, France has been the main target of attacks in Europe.  

This time it is a teacher who was beheaded on French soil and only a few days later, when France had still not recovered from its wounds, it is a church and its places of worship that are attacked.  

President Macron has strongly condemned these murders, "we will not give in", he said in defending the freedom of the press, and he owes it to the blasphemy that the French have acquired by paying a high price to the Church.  

Since these sad events, mosques have been closed, Muslim associations have been banned or are in the process of being banned... France has started a real purge in religious circles. The Muslim community felt attacked and denounced a crusade against Islam.  

Violent reactions were transmitted everywhere in the Arab or Muslim world. The call for a boycott of French products was widely followed. In Qatar, they were removed from supermarket shelves. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan considers France to be the great enemy of Islam.   

The French president has therefore decided to put an end to the "misunderstandings".  In this context, the Elysée Palace contacted the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera with its 40 million viewers.   

"Our country has no problem with any religion in the world because all religions are practised freely. And as for French Muslims, as well as citizens from all over the world whose religion is Islam, I would like to say that France is a country where this religion is also practised freely. There is no stigmatisation, all this is false, and a country whose universal vocation is also to be attached to peace, to the ability to live whatever their religion", the French President made it clear at first sight. For the record, the Al-Jazeera channel has become the voice of the boycott and the beating of the French.   

Macron has engaged in an educational exercise in front of people where freedom of expression is often absent from the political arena.   

"In this freedom of expression, there is also the possibility of drawing and caricaturing. This is our right. It comes from a long time ago, from the end of the 19th century. It is important to defend it because it is what the French people want, and we are in our sovereign country. This right has led to caricatures in the newspapers, and we also have a history. And these caricatures made fun of the political leaders, your servant, and that is normal," he said.  

In the same vein of appeasement, the French president sent his foreign minister to Egypt to ease the tensions of the cartoon crisis.  

Jean Yves Le Drian met the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who considered "insults to the prophet" to be "unacceptable", but above all the influential sheikh of Al-Azhar, who judged Emmanuel Macron's remarks on Islamist separatism and the cartoons of the prophet to be "racist": "Insulting the prophet is completely unacceptable and we will prosecute anyone who disrespects our prophet before international courts", stated Al-Azhar's press release. Throughout this storm, Le Drian reassured by speaking of several "points of convergence" during discussions with the highest Sunni body of Islam.   

The minister "will continue the process of explanation and appeasement initiated by the President of the Republic", according to the Quai d'Orsay press release.  

One will remember from this visit a minister who wants to be a conciliator: "I remembered and recall here the deep respect we have for Islam". Did this operation of seduction bear fruit? In any case, signs of calm are being felt and calls for a boycott are becoming increasingly rare. But what is at stake for France is not only economic, but also, and above all, security.  

France has continued to lose its appeal in the Arab world in recent years. However, under President Chirac, it was considered the great friend of Muslims and the East.  

The former French president, who was highly criticised in his country, had conducted a foreign policy that was highly appreciated by Muslims. He was in favour of Turkey's accession to the European Union, and it will also be recalled that he was against the war in Iraq and had not followed his American allies. It was also in France that Yasser Arafat was taken in and died. The French flag had flown alongside the Palestinian flag at the funeral of the PLO leader.  

The time when France was considered a friend of the Arabs or of Arab leaders seems to be over.