I will always defend in my
country the freedom to say, to write, to think, to draw.” - Macron
Emmanuel Macron, French President told a news
channel that he can understand the anger of Muslims due to the cartoons of Prophet
Muhammad but violence by Muslims was unacceptable. He further said that he’d
defend his nation’s freedoms. France is facing terrorist attacks at home and the
Muslim world is calling to boycott French products.
In 2015, al-Qaeda Islamic
terrorists killed 13 people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie
Hebdo after it published cartoons of Muslim prophet.
A teacher was beheaded by a
radical Islamic terrorist, followed by beheading of a woman and killing of 2
other people in a church attack. And on Saturday October 31, a church priest
was shot by a lone wolf.
Macron was speaking to
Al-Jazeera, an Arabic broadcaster on Saturday.
“I understand the feelings this
stirs, I respect them,” he said of Muslim objections to the cartoons amid
widening protests in Muslim countries. “But I want you to understand my role:
my role is to calm things down as I’m doing here, and to protect those rights.”
Macron emphasized that “I would
never accept that the cartoons justify violence.” I will always defend in my
country the freedom to say, to write, to think, to draw.”
“Deciding to boycott a country, a people,
because a newspaper said something in our country, is crazy,” Emmanuel Macron
said.
