{"id":401409,"date":"2020-10-28T12:05:15","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T09:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=401409"},"modified":"2020-10-28T12:05:15","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T09:05:15","slug":"french-muslims-accuse-macron-of-dividing-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/french-muslims-accuse-macron-of-dividing-society\/","title":{"rendered":"French Muslims accuse Macron of dividing society"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ankara(SONNA)<\/strong>-Muslims in France say President Emmanuel Macron has divided the country with the controversial remarks on Islam he has repeatedly made in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Amid tension between the government and French Muslims, Macron on Monday posted a photo on Twitter saying \u201cWe are one,\u201d which Yasser Louati, head of the Justice and Liberties For All Committee, called a \u201cjoke,\u201d accusing the president of \u201cexcluding Muslim citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow did we go from France being celebrated in the Muslim world or the Arab world for its refusal to join America in destroying Iraq in 2003 to France today being boycotted under Emmanuel Macron?\u201d Louati asked in an interview with Anadolu Agency, adding that Macron lacks an understanding of foreign policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis arrogance has not only divided the French population but also brought it to a crisis,\u201d the human rights activist added.<\/p>\n

Farid Hafez, a political scientist and lecturer at the University of Salzburg in Austria, described Macron’s move as “the manifestation of discrimination based on the law.”<\/p>\n

“Macron is following his strategy of creating a French Muslim identity that is first of all invisible and secondly politically harmless, not questioning the status quo of France’s discriminatory policies vis-a-vis its Muslim population,” he said.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 2, Macron announced a controversial plan to tackle what he calls \u201cIslamic separatism\u201d in France, claiming that the faith of Islam is in \u201ccrisis\u201d all over the world and promising to \u201cfree Islam in France from foreign influences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, he defended blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, saying France would \u201cnot give up our cartoons\u201d after the brutal murder of high school teacher Samuel Paty, who showed provocative caricatures in a class.<\/p>\n

At least 73 mosques, private schools, and workplaces in France, a country that has the largest Muslim minority in Western Europe with around 5 million, have been shut down so far this year, according to the French Interior Ministry.<\/p>\n

Macron competing in same lane as far-right<\/strong><\/p>\n

French voters will head to the polls for presidential elections in less than two years, in April 2022. The polls, however, currently show Macron neck and neck with Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally.<\/p>\n

Many believe Macron’s strategy to win the next elections is by co-opting the arguments of the far-right.<\/p>\n

According to Enes Bayrakli, a researcher at the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) based in Ankara, Turkey, Macron is trying to overcome his domestic and foreign policy woes by \u201cscapegoating Islam and Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMacron is trying to stop the rise of the far-right by adopting their extreme statements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Louati, echoing this idea, said Macron has nothing else to show for his candidacy as he failed socially and economically, citing the Yellow Vest movements and other protest demonstrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s got nothing to show us aside from identity politics. So basically what he’s saying is, I can\u2019t grant you a bright future. I can only promise you war against Muslims,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u2018Signs of Islamophobic terror wave\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bayrakli, also a co-editor of the European Islamophobia Report, said he thinks that the situation for Muslims in Europe is deteriorating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see the signs of an Islamophobic terror wave in Europe,\u201d he told Anadolu Agency, citing the rise of far-right networks across the continent.<\/p>\n

The last few years have seen a surge in far-right terrorist attacks in Western countries.<\/p>\n

Far-right attacks ballooned 320% over the past five years in North America, Western Europe, and Oceania, according to the 2019 Global Terrorism Index.<\/p>\n

On July 22, 2011, Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Breivik killed eight people in bombings in Oslo and shot to death another 69 at a youth camp on Utoya island.<\/p>\n

On March 15, 2019, Brenton Tarrant, an Australian white supremacist, killed 51 Muslims preparing for Friday prayers in Christchurch, New Zealand.<\/p>\n

On February 19, 2020, a German far-right extremist attacked two Turkish cafes in the western German town of Hanau, killing nine people with migrant backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Hostility in France towards Muslims rose further in recent weeks. For instance, last week, two headscarf-wearing Muslim women were repeatedly stabbed in a park under the Eiffel Tower, with attackers shouting insults such as \u201cdirty Arabs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bayrakli says this is exactly what terrorist groups such as Daesh\/ISIS expect from Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want Europe to enter a wave of violence. European politicians also come to this game because of cheap political calculations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Silence of EU member states<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bans on headscarves, \u201cburkini\u201d swimwear, and halal slaughter (according to Muslim dietary rules) as well as restrictions on mosques in some European countries have also drawn outrage.<\/p>\n

But Macron’s plan to control “foreign influences” in religion is not new for Europe. In Austria, the funding of imams from foreign countries was already banned with the Islam Act of 2015, said Hafez.<\/p>\n

Macron \u201cis following suit and trying to impose the same discriminatory measures against Muslims only, not believers of other churches and religious denominations,” Hafez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we see is an intervention in religion by states. This is actually against secularism,\u201d said Bayrakli. \u201cA state should not interfere in the internal affairs of religion and theological debates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the silence of European leaders amid rising tension in France, Yasser Louati said he interpreted it as \u201cdisapproval of Macron\u2019s policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Enes Bayrakli said he saw it as support.<\/p>\n

The EU even avoids using the word \u201cIslamophobia,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EU appointed a coordinator on \u2018combating anti-Muslim hatred,\u2019 avoiding using the term Islamophobia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion, Islamophobia has become the dominant ideology of the 21st century, just like opposition to communism during the Cold War.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why there is political ignorance and silence,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

@AA<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ankara(SONNA)-Muslims in France say President Emmanuel Macron has divided the country with the controversial remarks on Islam he has repeatedly made in recent weeks. Amid tension between the government and French Muslims, Macron on Monday posted a photo on Twitter saying \u201cWe are one,\u201d which Yasser Louati, head of the Justice and Liberties For All […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-401409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401411,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401409\/revisions\/401411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}