French Muslims accuse Macron of dividing society

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 “We are one,” which Yasser Louati, head of the Justice and Liberties For All Committee, called a “joke,” accusing the president of “excluding Muslim citizens.”

“How 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?” Louati asked in an interview with Anadolu Agency, adding that Macron lacks an understanding of foreign policy.

“His arrogance has not only divided the French population but also brought it to a crisis,” the human rights activist added.

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.”

“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.

On Oct. 2, Macron announced a controversial plan to tackle what he calls “Islamic separatism” in France, claiming that the faith of Islam is in “crisis” all over the world and promising to “free Islam in France from foreign influences.”

Last week, he defended blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, saying France would “not give up our cartoons” after the brutal murder of high school teacher Samuel Paty, who showed provocative caricatures in a class.

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.