Jakarta, CNN Indonesia –
President French Emmanuel Macron says his country is battling “Islamic separatism, not Islam”. This was disclosed by Macron in response to an article in England.
Macron claims Financial Times misquoted his statement and since then, the article has been removed from the newspaper’s website.
On Wednesday, in a letter addressed to the newspaper’s editor, Macron said the British newspaper accused it of “stigmatizing French Muslims for election purposes and fostering a climate of fear and suspicion against them.
“I will not allow anyone to claim that France, or its government, encourages racism against Muslims,” Macron was quoted as saying AFP, Thursday (4/11).
An opinion article written by a correspondent Financial Times published Tuesday alleges that Macron’s condemnation of “Islamic separatism” risks fostering a “hostile environment” for French Muslims.
The article was later removed from the newspaper’s website and replaced with a notice that the article “contained factual errors.”
Macron also warned that there were still “breeding grounds” for extremism in France.
“In certain districts and on the internet, groups associated with radical Islam are teaching hatred against the republic, to our children, asking them to ignore the law,” Macron said.
“This is what France is fighting against against hatred and death that threatens children, (France) has never been against Islam. We are against deception, fanaticism, violent extremism. Not religion,” he said.
In recent weeks, Macron has drawn protests in various Muslim countries regarding his support for the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad after the beheading of a teacher named Samuel Paty last October.
Paty was killed for discussing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his disciples. Islam does forbid the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.
Following a wave of protests and boycotts of French products around the world, Macron admits that understanding the caricature can be shocking to some. This he conveyed in an interview with Al Jazeera on the weekend.
(years / dea)
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