Hard-line politicians ramp up rhetoric after French church killings
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The attack that left three people dead in the Notre Dame basilica in the French city of Nice has led hard-liners to double down on their messages.
The far-right figure Marine Le Pen told France's BFM TV on Friday that "Islamism is waging war on us."
The attack Thursday by a man identified by investigators as a 21-year-old Tunisian national was immediately condemned by the French Council for the Muslim Faith, as well as several Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey.
Meanwhile, in Italy, former Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing party known as the League, attacked his country's government after it emerged that the suspect had entered Europe through the Italian island of Lampedusa.
While the official French doctrine of colorblindness is intended to ignore ethnic and religious backgrounds and to view all French citizens as equally French, some mainstream politicians in the country have also hardened their rhetoric.
"We are at war with an enemy that is both an enemy from inside and outside," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told RTL Radio on Friday.
Darmanin, a member of President Emmanuel Macron's centrist En Marche party, added that the country, which is home to Europe's largest Muslim population, should brace itself for further attacks.
Macron defiant after Nice knife attack: 'We will not give in'
Angry comments also emanated from some Muslim countries and figures.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, 95, tweeted Thursday: "Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past. But by and large the Muslims have not applied the 'eye for an eye' law. Muslims don't. The French shouldn't."
He later said his statement had been taken out of context, denied promoting violence and criticized Facebook and Twitter for removing his posts.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan politician who was long designated a militant by the U.S. but has recently made peace with the Washington-backed government in Kabul, warned Macron that if he doesn't "control the situation, we are going to a Third World War, and Europe will be responsible."
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Turkey, Lebanon, Bangladesh and other predominantly Muslim countries Friday. Some burned effigies of Macron, while others cried "death to France" and called for a boycott of French products.
Tensions were already running high in France after Samuel Paty was beheaded in a Paris suburb last month by a young Chechen man, apparently incensed that Paty, a middle school teacher, had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in one of his classes.
The magazine had recently republished the images to mark the start of a terrorism trial in the killings at its offices and a kosher supermarket in Paris in January 2015.
Macron has refused to condemn the cartoons and has championed his country's secularist principles.
But the caricatures, considered blasphemous by Muslims, have provoked anger across the Islamic world.
"Secularism is a kind of fundamentalism of its own," said Andrew Hussey, a cultural historian and author of the "The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs."
The "two very opposing ways of seeing the world" seem to be "irreconcilable," he said. With neither side likely to back down on its worldview, Hussey said, the emotional climate is "terribly overheated."
Members of an Italian Muslim association in Rome condemned the attack in Nice but staged a sit-in protest Friday against the publication of pictures they say disrespect the Prophet Muhammad.Andrew Medichini / AP
Some in France say the debate is harming the country.
"Our own discourse in France is radicalizing," said Francois Heran, a French sociologist and academic at the College de France in Paris, adding that it was "a mistake" to conflate freedom of expression with French identity.
Instead, Heran said, freedom of speech has "limits" that are being forgotten in the public discourse as "the pressure of the far right is very, very strong."
"We are now the hostages of Charlie Hebdo. We are now the hostages of the jihadists," he said. "I'm rather pessimistic."
Tags
Who is online
467 visitors
Since the attack described here, there has been another. A Greek-Orthodox priest was shot to death, in his church.
The difference in handling these apparently similar events, by both the police and the media, is significant.
The earlier attack was designated "probable terrorism" almost immediately, by the police and the judiciairy. The media immediately gave the information about the authorities' designation, and soon was behaving as if it was a given.
In the more recent case, the difference was blatant. The first information from the police was "all possibilities are being examined". The judiciairy did not assign the case to a "terrorism court". There has been little more news, but it seems clear that the police believes the crime was "crapuleux", that is, money-based.
The point is, an attack on a priest is not presumed to be terrorism.
In France, as in many countries, the right-wing is Islamophobic. Of course, they blame "those people". That is news, like Trump attacking AOC is news.
Radical Islamic beliefs vs free speech. I understand that Muslims form a fairly substanial voting bloc in France so there is bound to be recluctance to indicating that beheadings, attacking people in a Jewish store, etc could be designated as terrorism.
Re-read, Buzz.
A week ago, police and judiciary immediately said "terrorism". Without the slightest hesitation. This time they did not.
The rule of law applies.
I don't remember any woman being beheaded.
Yes, Samuel Paty was beheaded by Abdoullakh Anzorov. I guess since Samuel Paty was a man instead of a woman that makes the bar game of pedantic semantics acceptable. Men's lives don't matter.
A Teacher, His Killer and the Failure of French Integration - New York Times
Accuracy is important.
No?
At times. Simply pointing out someone is wrong ain't informative and really doesn't improve accuracy. Often that type of accuracy is used to be misleading.
Alternatively, the person might check his facts and realize that he was wrong.
He might even realize that it's unwise to explain French current events to a resident of France.
Or the facts could be posted to inform everyone and correct the error. I suppose that might be the difference between a political activist and a teacher.
As the incident highlights, political activists are killing teachers.
So that didn't really happen?
Not exactly:
The key is underscored. "throat cut so deep it was almost a decapitation".
Most French media reported the woman's death with precision, like Le Monde, here. Most foreign media went with the more dramatic "beheaded".
Personally, I was unaware of the "almost beheading". "Three dead" was bad enough.
Precision? Okay. Since something new was learned, perhaps it wasn't unwise to discuss French current events with a resident. No?
Touché
r-right figure Marine Le Pen told France's BFM TV on Friday that "Islamism is waging war on us."
Is she wrong?
Since she certainly wasn't speaking English, your quote is a translation. I'd need to see the French.
If she said "L'islamisme nous fait la guerre", I agree. If she said "L'islam nous fait la guerre", I certainly don't agree.