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Emmanuel Macron: "We will always stand on the side of human dignity and fundamental values"
Photo: LUDOVIC MARIN / POOL / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
A boycott of French products began on Sunday in several Arab countries.
The background is remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron on caricatures of the Islamic prophet Mohammed.
Traders in Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar took French goods from their stores.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also launched a verbal attack against Macron.
He accused the French President of Islamophobia, doubted his mental health and described Macron as a case of illness that must be examined.
Paris called back its ambassador from Ankara in protest.
"We will carry on"
The background to this are statements by French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.
He had defended freedom of expression and sided with those who want to show or publish caricatures.
France will not "do without caricatures and drawings, even if others withdraw," said Macron at a memorial service in honor of the slain teacher Samuel Paty.
He had shown Mohammed cartoons in class and was beheaded in the street.
Islamic tradition forbids depicting the prophet.
Macron defended his position on freedom of expression on Twitter on Sunday evening.
Hate speech is not accepted and the reasonable debate is defended.
"We will always stand on the side of human dignity and basic values."
Macron also spread the message in Arabic and English.
"Our story is that of the fight against tyranny and fanaticism. We will continue," he wrote in French.
Mohammed caricatures had already triggered violent protests in the Islamic world several times.
Relations between the Muslim world and France could deteriorate.
Erdogan's verbal attack on Macron also exacerbates bilateral tensions between NATO partners Turkey and France.
The influential Al-Azhar college in Cairo warned against a campaign against Islam in light of Macron's statements.
In Kuwait, 50 consumer cooperatives said they had removed all French goods from their branches, according to the newspaper "Al-Kabas".
In Qatar, too, supermarket chains have announced that they will be taking French goods off their shelves until further notice.
Videos could be seen on social networks of employees at a supermarket in Amman, the capital of Jordan, removing French dairy products from the refrigerated shelves.
Users spread the names of French brands on the Internet and called for a boycott, and corresponding hashtags made the rounds.
France called for an immediate end to the calls for boycotts.
These would distort the positions defended by France in favor of freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and religion as well as the rejection of any call to hatred, it said in a statement from the Foreign Ministry.
The statements would be instrumentalized by a radical minority.
Fatal attack on Charlie Hebdo
In early 2006, more than 150 people were killed in violent protests against Mohammed cartoons.
The trigger at the time were caricatures in the Danish newspaper "Jyllands-Posten".
In 2015, twelve people died in an attack on the French satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo", which had also shown caricatures of the prophet.
For devout Muslims, films or pictures showing the Prophet Muhammad as a person are offensive and a form of blasphemy.
The Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned the publication of satirical cartoons depicting the Prophet.
Such behavior "damages Muslim-French relations".
The Grand Imam of Cairo, Ahmed al-Tajib, spoke of a systematic campaign to force Islam into political struggles.
The Jordanian Foreign Ministry said the publications hurt the feelings of Muslims.
Pakistan's prime minister accused Macron of Islamophobia in a series of tweets.
"President Macron has attacked and hurt the feelings of millions of Muslims in Europe and around the world," he wrote.
"What kind of problem does this person named Macron have with Islam and Muslims?" Asked Erdoğan at an event on Saturday.
Macron should be in psychological treatment, added the Turkish president.
His French counterpart does not understand freedom of belief.
At the same event, Erdoğan also called a police raid on a Berlin mosque on Wednesday because of suspected corona subsidy fraud as anti-Islamic.
Insults against Macron from "the highest level of the Turkish state"
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said there was a will to stir up hatred against France.
This was also expressed in the direct insults against Macron from "the highest level of the Turkish state".
Paris also criticized that the Turkish side had given no official condemnation of the killing of the teacher or solidarity for France.
Turkey rejected the allegation on Sunday evening.
The Turkish ambassador in Paris expressed his regret, a statement from the Foreign Ministry said.
Turkey regrets the "murder" of the teacher "as a country that has been fighting against all forms of terrorism and violence for years" as well as that of victims of similar events, it said.
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bbr / dpa
