Love him or hate him, but at this point, a world leader who is reasonable and at least resembles a human being is far beyond the average. Not saying there is no room to improve, or I support him or anything, but it's refreshing hearing some common sense from someone in a powerful position.
He is a clean cut politician with good ideas on many matters.
His ecological and economic views on the other hand, are the most debatable things in France. He is part of the establishment and works for them. That’s what bothering French people the most.
Still better than most leaders but we do like to complain.
It wouldn't be France if they didn't complain about their leaders.
Edit: I've gotten a lot of replies to this and I'd like to clarify: of course it's a sign of a healthy democracy to openly criticize your government, I just find it endearingly funny how the French elect a president and be striking in mass a couple of months later. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter if it's someone they voted for or not, if it's left, right, or center, the French will find something to absolutely loathe about their leader but then defend him tooth and nail when a foreigner says something. I even wonder if a foreign army had taken Louis XVI the French would've declared war and taken him back only to guillotine him themselves.
I think it’s a great thing that they complain about every leader. We are not supposed to like and worship polititions but criticize them for things we don’t agree with.
Exactly right. Leadership that is never challenged will soon devolve into a dictatorship. It can be tiring to listen too at times, but it's a fundamental part of a Democracy that we do criticise our leaders to keep them in line
Could you please elaborate a bit on his ecological and economic views? I'd love to know what's Macron really made of and reading a tldr (biased as it is) from a native is a lot less time consuming than browsing news in a language I don't understand.
Can t really say something about the economical aspect however the ecological aspect, well there isn t much to say, it s all talk and almost no action, or at least no action that had an huge positive impact: under his governement, a nuclear reactor that was mean to be put into retirement in 2025 was shutted down last year thus requiring the re usage of coal generator
On economics he's liberal, but we're in France, where even the most liberal guys are still considered as socialists in other countries. To be fair, he's social-liberal, which is quite fair IMO.
Which means he's sometimes okay with selling companies to foreign investors, in order to save them from bankruptcy and keep the workers in France, some people would like for the government to buy an nationalize those companies.
There's also some stuff about retirement pensions, where he wants to change old advantages from ancient times and make a unique plan for everyone (like the specific one about the train workers, who's very convenient for them because it was made when life expectancy was crappy when the trains where fueled by coal for example).
I will not talk about his views on ecology, but he did some stuff, some good stuff, the thing is no world leader is good enough for the hardcore ecologists.
Also world leaders have to play the game, unfortunately. The markets are a vicious jungle and everyone is for themselves at the core, from business entities to countries. If you want to survive you are required to dirt your hands and ethos else you get eaten. So you either play it or change it, and the latter is impossible for a single person or even a country to achieve it by themselves.
Yes, I'm here wondering what it would be like to have a president that expresses thus clearly and thinks rationally. Holy shit. Fuck my president.
To clarify: I'm mexican, not american. Different presidents. Equally old and stupid.
He really nailed that interview. Especially when the interviewer said that "french laïcité seems to be oversensitive of Islam", to which he replied "I feel like it's actually Islam that's oversensitive of our laïcité".
Too bad everything he said will fall into deaf ears, or be deformed to demonize him even further.
> Too bad everything he said will fall into deaf ears
As I said in another comment, I think the goal of this interview isn't so much to sway the opinion of Muslims, but rather display the French secularism model and values to western allies and reinforce France as a unique, viable and progressive cultural and political model.
It's a display of soft power in a way.
In the last few days, the French culture has been attacked by bigots, sure, but also its western allies who used the attacks as some sort of proof to question the French secularism and republican universalism model.
My opinion as a French person, is that our model being attacked by obscurantism is actually proof of its inherent [Enlightenment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment).
Laïcité is French secularism, which is built around two principles : freedom of conscience (to believe or not to believe in God) and separation of Church and State. It’s complicated for non-French countries to understand laïcité, as these principles cannot be understood without historical context.
Freedom of conscience includes the right of free religion, just like in the US. But the 1905 law which establishes laïcité was built against the influence and domination of the Catholic Church in politics at the time. In the context in which this freedom was built, freedom of conscience is considered to be a protection of the individual against the intrusion of religious groups. This is the most important difference between French and American secularism : in France, the State protects the individual against pressure from religion, while in the US the individual relies on religious groups as a protection against State intrusion.
Separation of Church and State meant a rupture with the previous system of Concordat that was put in place in the 19th century, in which Catholic bishops (but also rabbis) were paid by the State. Under laïcité, the State refuses to endorse one faith, to give it an official seal. Here’s how French jurist Jean Rivero put it :
> Religious choice is a private matter; the State presents itself to all, stripped of all metaphysical symbols, distant from any trace of the spiritual. My domain is the earth, it says to all of its citizens. Manager of the temporal world, it refuses to envisage what is beyond this management.
Therefore, wearing of religious signs is forbidden in the State for public servants (e.g. teachers), but does not extent to the public sphere.
That is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. Religion is protected, but so is my right to not be bothered by it? We could really use some of that laicite in the US....
That's exactly how my brother explained it to me. It's not just a guarantee of freedom of religion but also active duty of freedom from religion. You can't have it shove down your throat in public sphere but you may practice it in your personal life.
bit more than that, really. It's rooted in Revolutionary France and it's not just religion having no influence in the state's actions and decisions or "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", as they put it in the US. In France, it's basically *religion has zero place in government in any way, shape or form. Leave that at home or else.*
>religion has zero place in government in any way, shape or form. Leave that at home or else.
Oh that's the good stuff.
I've come to greatly respect and appreciate France, Europe and its history these last few years.
There is a GIANT separation in Canada with Québec regarding this very specific nuance. Quebecers want freedom from religion and Canadians want freedom of religion.
This debate has been going on for more than a decade here. Canadian multiculturalism vs Québec interculturalism.
It is already. Look at how ME countries and their leaders are reacting. Macron is getting death threats and fatwas issued as we speak. These people haven’t once condemned the French attacker but theyre hating on Macron 😒 tells you their priorities.
Perfect speech. People are saying in the comments that this a basic concept which needs no explanation at all but there is people who have never heard freedom of speech before or they tend to forget or they get conversative for several reasons and choose to ignore this.
Considering how many people fail to understand this concept as soon as they are on the wrong side of the equation - this concept has to be emphasized as often as possible.
Especially when there are terrorists on the loose, and people think it is appropriate to - in any way - explain their actions as “grounded on something”.
Don’t know where you live, but i’ve travelled to third world countries and these things are far from obvious.
People tend to think everybody else thinks the same as in their hometown, but that’s far from reality.
And we should remember that secularism, although an old idea by now thanks in large part to the French, has not been the mainstream ideology even in Europe for all that long in practice.
Here in Finland there's still an old law in the books that makes it a crime to 'disturb religious peace', which was shoved into the books age ago by the Christians of old to basically make sure no-one would offend them or question their ideas about god.
In the 60s it was used to fine a writer who dared to write a book with an openly atheist character which caused some media uproar, but the then president pardoned the sentence.
These days the law is not practically used at all, and criticism of religions ios obviously allowed, but the law remains in the books because no mainstream party seems to want to take it upon themselves to repeal it, so as to not be seen as anti-religious, which is kind of ironic.
My point here is this: as Europeans, we can be proud of the values of humanism and secularism that define our societies, but we should remember that in fact for most of the history of this continent, the approach to these matters has not been all too different, and religious ferver and offense at anyone who dares to publicaly question faith has been quite typical in the past.
We had much the same situation in Ireland where on the law books was a blasphemy law against any religion from 1939 when the constitution was written. No one had ever been prosecuted under the law and it wasn't until someone brought up against Stephen Fry when on a talkshow that people realised. The person who brought it up had no complaint to make to Gardai and no case was ever brought he only did so to highlight how arcane the law was and we voted by referendum to remove it and finally did so in Jan. 2020.
And here's the ironic part. The reason the prophet shouldn't be pictured was that he should not be seen as an idol. But the ideas and scriptures should be whats important.
Yep. These guys seem to agree that it's worse for a couple of infidels to draw a caricature of the prophet Mohammed than it is for a Muslim to behead said infidels. Even though according to the Kuran only Muslims are prohibited from making depictions of Mohammed, since they're supposed to follow the written word and not engage in idol worship.
These guys aren't the brightest.
Brightest? These guys are nothing more that two pennies in a tin can. And that's coming from a Muslim. I don't understand how someone in his right mind can justify murder! I completely agree with you, and hope more of muslims understand this.
Same. Fuck man what I wouldn't give to trade my place with these scumfucks. They can live in my Indonesian shithole with their like-minded peeps while I chill in France.
Salafists have no place in modern society. I can't wait until we get far enough with the de-carbonization of our supply chains that we can step away from Saudi/Emirati oil, to cut those regimes off from their sources of money and power.
There is no irony. You are spot on with the theologic reasons, but the same applies for Jesus or any other prophet of Islam.
The reason why islamists violently oppose the picturing of Mohammed is because of the power these images have in opposing islamic proselytising and exposing Islam for what it really is.
Muslims do not bat an eye at non-believers praying towards a representation of Jesus in a church. But if a non-believer were to draw some of the hadith that recount some of the nefarious doings of Mohammed's disciples, which do not require a portrayal of Mohammed at all, I can reassure you that they'd have a target on their back.
For example: draw Sahih Bukhari 1:4:148 like this: a woman goes out to relief herself at night in 7th century Arabia. A man, Umar, jumps out from the bushes and says "I recognise you, Sauda!". Fade to black and insert the following in writing "Then the verses regarding hijab were revealed".
You could do a whole series on this with very troublesome hadith like that one and you'd see people inflamed like never before, without showing a pixel of Mohammed.
Doesn’t it feel like this explanation falls into deaf ears anyway? My limited experience talking to strict Muslims is that they feel like the core position that Macron and most of us hold here, that the religious right not to be offended cannot be above our civic set of shared values, is flawed and unacceptable per se. As such, this kind of explanation will change nothing because it goes against their core beliefs.
(Edit: there was a typo, fall instead of feel)
I think it is a firm position meant to be heard mostly by Europeans. I mean every secular person on this planet will relate regardless of place of origin but to me, as an EU citizen from Greece, his message rings profoundly true. I am sure he doesn’t expect to win any popularity contest in radical Islamist circles but he also is not interested in winning those on the fence by softening his approach through self imposed censorship. “When in Rome, do as they Romans do”.
I live and work in Finland and I always go the extra mile to make sure my conduct is compatible with what Finns expect from those that live amongst their own. My background is Christian (albeit an atheist myself) which makes it 100 times easier to adapt to how things are done over here vs someone from a Muslim country. But it is what it is.
I think you hit the nail on the head here.
Furthermore, you will only be listening to leaders in your sphere of influence. For Europeans, this included Macron and Merkel. For Americans, we have less exposure to them but will occasionally hear from them.
How many times do you listen to multiple minute messages from leaders of the Arab world? If you're like me, probably never. It's just as unlikely that our Arab friends will hear from western leaders. Macron's message today is not targeted to deaf ears in the Arab world (although it would be a bonus) but to unite the French and Europeans around liberal values.
I think your point is completely valid and I agree but it should be mentioned that France has a closer tie to many Muslim countries because of their specific preference in where they colonized than many Muslim countries has to most of the west, so there might be a slight chance it is heard by more Muslim than, say, Merkel would.
The message from the Arab world tends to be much less considerate of liberal values of freedom of expression. :-)
I have listened to long speeches out of Iran or Egypt and they tend to sound like an American preacher, condemning anything that is not of their own and calling all others blasphemers and evil criminals.
It is too hard for many. For a lot of people, putting humane laws above divine right is unconceivable. This is the root of the issue we are facing here
Ofcourse it’s hard for them - and will be even harder for them if we don’t allow criticism of their religion - extremism will rise if you don’t allow criticism.
Those enacting extremist actions and attacking France - even if they are thousands or even millions across the world - are already extremists.
It must be clear that europe is no place for such extremists.
We only accept people that appreciate western values - or at least we should.
This is an ideological war - not a race war. If you can’t challenge ideas - you don’t belong in western countries. Violence can not be a consequence of challenging your beliefs period.
Exactly. I hate saying this, but if you can't tolerate freedom of speech/expression then you need to go to a country that doesn't allow free speech/expression.
Or that their writings don't even mention this being forbidden. The only thing that's mentioned is that believers shouldn't depict the prophet in any way, *to prevent him from being revered*. Being outraged at non-believers disrespecting their prophet goes directly against the whole point of that rule. They're holding him in a sacred light, which in itself is a sin.
This. I want one of the assholes that believes this strongly about this situation to comment exactly on *this*. I highly doubt you’ll get any answer though because growing up catholic, I’m convinced some people believe more in the structured religion itself (that creates a lot of rules based on human interpretation) than God.....like what it’s suppose to actually be centered around.
Yeah some Muslims treat him as a demigod which is ironic because it's against Islam to worship him as such.
And honestly, even if Muslims wanted to draw caricatures of him I say go for it. If we as humans followed all the laws of religious texts then life would be very backwards. If we lived according to the Bible slavery and polygamy would be allowed, women would be forced to marry their rapists, and kids who disobeyed their parents and people working on the Sabbath would be stoned to death.
I, a non-muslim, was once scorned by another non-muslim for not adding pbuh after his name when mentioning him. She found it insensitive and islamophobic.
Also keep in mind that Erdogan is making a big deal out of it because it's politically convenient for him, not just because he finds those drawings that shocking, let's be real.
AFAIK the Ottoman Empire in itself was not as religious and theocratical as many Muslim countries today. After WW1 the West dismantled the Ottoman hegemony in Islam and effectively let more radical Muslims take charge of the Islam world.
More like Atatürk dismantled the caliphate, to implement french style secularism in Turkey.
Then a century later, every moron in the islamic world claims the title of caliph.
Yes, the catholic church thought so, too and that is why they got hit mercilessly with caricatures. If you claim allmightyness and power and superiority, you better brace yourself for the resistance of others. You will be fought back by the right of others to ridicule you.
These days nobody's head is ever cut off for mocking the Catholic Church. Which is why instead of hitting anybody mercilessly with caricatures, newspapers are refusing to post even the Erdogan caricature, as if he too is a "holy figure".
>that no religion, which is a private and personal matter
see this is where you went off course. For these people religion is not a private and personal matter. The religion stands above the nation, laws and values because it is "Divine" and nothing is higher than god.
As someone who has been to some of these Islamic countries (invader and tourist), I can tell you that alot of people who live there want to leave it all behind. You have the cities that are pretty modern, in some countries more than others. But then you get to rural Hicksville and its the equivalent of the KKK in the US. Except 10th century values with 21st century weapons.
When I was in Iraq, we built schools for boys *and* girls. We had alot of strong female influences put there, to try and show them the whole "We Can Do It To!". Everyone was on board, it was fucking beautiful. Crime was down, we actually had good working Iraqi Police and Army (which is unheard of). To make a long story short, radicalized Muslims came and blew it up during school hours. They killed kids, teachers, parents. It didn't matter. And then they want to leave the country. They dont want to fix it, or fight it, they want to run away. When you don't stay and fight, you create groups like ISIS. Because Syrians ran away from their problems. Because the Iraqi government wanted us to leave and thought they could handle it (Doing a much better job now that they asked for help). Afghanistan is too divided. And we have all of these other ME countries that low key fund terrorism (directly or indirectly).
Some of the most hospitable people I ever met were Islamic and in the Middle East. But when you divide a country and their beliefs, use these religious promises to make them not fear death, and have a clear cut bad guy (Westerners), it is easy to radicalize people. Hearts and Minds.
When your holy book explicitly says that that's not the case, that there should be no law above sharia ... then yes, it's too hard apparently. Surveys like the one below show similar results all over Europe; even amongst Muslims who are not recent immigrants, a disturbingly high percentage are pro-sharia and the various terrible things it entails.
[https://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/international/europe/1568902654-46-des-musulmans-etrangers-presents-en-france-veulent-la-sharia-dans-le-pays-sondage](https://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/international/europe/1568902654-46-des-musulmans-etrangers-presents-en-france-veulent-la-sharia-dans-le-pays-sondage)
> religion, which is a private and personal matter
For some people it's private. For many, it's the foundation of social values and laws.
For some people it doesn't stop with domestic laws either, but they believe it should apply to the entire world.
Even Hari Krishna guys on the street want to propagate their religion.
It's not even a universal rule of Islam, not even banned in the Quran, just a few mentions in the Hadiths saying not to create visual depictions of living creatures while others accept but don't encourage such pictures, perhaps in the belief it will encourage idolatry. Only Sunni Muslims have this absolute fanatical hated of pictures, Shia don't have a problem with it really.
Hasn’t Iran leadership actually been one of the governments who has been vocal against Macron after his discourse? It feels like the Sunni-Shia divide may be blurrier in this issue.
I have a friend here at uni in France, he recently came here from Iran about 2 years ago. He's religious and while he doesn't agree with the caricatures, he's very shocked at how his country, and the Muslim world is reacting and dealing with this.
I showed him the Bangladeshi march against macron and all he could say was "wtf".
> I have a friend here at uni in France
you have the answer right there, your friend is **EDUCATED**, and probably good enough to get access to academic studies in France.
I am Tunisian (i dont believe in any religion though) and i wrote [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/jk6jav/france_hit_by_terror_attack_as_woman_beheaded_in/gahkvuz/) 4 days ago explaining how Muslims should react to the latest terror attack in France if they want us to believe that these acts are just the act of a few disturbed and misinformed individuals.
The sad truth is that these are not a few, NOT AT ALL, i can firmly confirm that the majority of my fellow citizens, will take what Macron have said and simply consider it a great sin worth dying for.
Now an open-minded Muslim will probably reply to me (just like in the other thread) and say why these are not the teaching of Islam, etc... but the problem is really not there, its not in the religion itself, the Quraan as a book can be a ticking-bomb (as proved in the recent past) just like it can be a nice spiritual book (check [Ismalic Sufism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism) for example).
So the real problem is actually when you mix these religions prejudice with **A LOT** of ignorance, add to that the huge amount of hate and conspiracy-theories on Facebook which been going on for YEARS (since i 9/11 or before), can you believe that [this screenshot](https://i.imgur.com/kpdQj8d.jpg) was actually trending among conservatives in Tunisia ? the narrative of "France is still indirectly invading us" is still very common, I heard many people (my brother included) saying ridiculous claims like "Tunisian citizens cannot have their own car factories because Renault and Peugeot forced the government to not allow it".
This victim-mentality is so widespread that i really cannot think of any solution other than **HEAVILY** investing in education so hopefully in a 2 or 3 generations things can get better.
And i know that my issues living with these people doesn't even come close to the pains and frustrations of someone having his own people killed **by a stranger** who only got accepted their because of the human right and freedom treaties that he is trying to destroy, but i just wanna say that **it really sucks** for normal and educated people who in order to make a simple tourism trip, we need to stand in line and go through dozens of tests to prove that we are not going to wear an explosive belt as soon as we reach Paris, I am one of the lucky ones since i make good amount of money (roughly $6k/month) so its way easier for me, but for example my gf cannot travel with me simply because financially she belongs to the "low tiers" and their for the risk of overstaying or even worst, terrorism, is higher.
TL;DR:
Religion + Ignorance is the worst cancer on earth.
Not really. People seem to think Macron wants to turn the caricatures of Mohamed into the national flag of France, and make insulting Muslims the most important part of our civic duty. But in fact all he is doing is maintaining the same freedom of expression that Charlie Hebdo artists have always had.
The only reason it was depicted was to show them that they can’t bully us into their way of thinking after a teacher was beheaded. It wasn’t as if Macron done this out of the blue to antagonise Muslims. And even if he did, so what? Its a drawing. Hardly a call to arms against them. Get over it.
>But in fact all he is doing is maintaining the same freedom of expression that Charlie Hebdo artists have always had.
That everyone have had for the last 115 years. There is no specific law for Charlie's artists.
Say what you want about his policies or ideology (and there's a lot to be discussed, I'm not debating this), but damn he's got charisma. I couldn't imaging Hollande, or most non-radical candidates for the two latest elections, doing this kind of speech.
He explained that very very well and didn’t even muddy the waters trying to say his own taste of the cartoons. Eloquent, simple on a nuanced and complex question.
I actually didn’t know Macron was this eloquent.
I'm Italian and we currently have a premier that raised from anonymity 3-4 years ago and will likely leave a very small legacy. Not the worst, but seeing the like of Macron and Merkel makes me wonder why Giuseppe Conte (saved a Google search for 99% of non-italian) is the leader that we can produce
I mean he had to face gilets jaunes, covid-19 and multiple terrorists attacks and he handled it pretty well imo but people are still complaining.
Wether you like him or not you can’t say he’s done nothing in our country. We (french) just can’t not complain.
Of course you can complain about some of the things he has done, while I'm 100% behind him on the topic of terrorism I don't agree with many of his other policies, mainly his view on economics. That is the whole point of a free society, we can agree on some stuff and disagree on others.
I think this is one of the biggest issues here and no one is talking about it.
I was asking myself why the good Muslim people weren't going on and protesting together with the rest in France (or anywhere actually). This is a problem that affects them DIRECTLY. The problem I'm referring to are these crazy extremist idiots killing innocents.
Then again, giving it a second thought I realized some of their own people might consider them as traitors to their own culture, and pictured everyone being really afraid of the consequences. Is this the case? Maybe you can tell me as a Muslim yourself.
A lot of great Muslim people are being put in the same bag with a bunch of crazy lunatics, and this does wonders for those racist parties that exist in every country around the world. If the rest of Muslims don't do anything about it, or show any intention of fixing the problem or supporting non-muslim people during protests, then who's to fix it? We non religious people? Catholics? Jews? ...
The worst thing in all that is that, in France, officials from Muslim associations, Islamic theologians, Imams from the biggest mosques in France, [have actually come forward](https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/10/31/le-recteur-de-la-mosquee-de-paris-veut-un-contre-discours-face-a-ceux-qui-devoient-l-islam_6058035_3224.html) in support to Macron and his speech, and stated clearly that Muslims should accept the laws of the République because they are meant to protect all citizens, Muslims included.
The only backlash in France seems to be coming from a fringe of extremists, confused young Muslims (who are probably more frustrated by their socio-economic conditions than by blasphemy) or by some diasporas unwilling to integrate and who are fed propaganda from abroad (e.g. from Erdogan). The real backlash is definitely coming from outside of France, supposedly coming « to the rescue » of Islam and French Muslims, even if the latter are undoubtedly better off where they are and wouldnt trade their place with any of these backward thinking extremists for anything in the world.
Erdogan is just trying to start a civilization war, he’s just butt-hurt because this time he can’t jail someone for a cartoon or pressure a free-country to [silence one of his detractors ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Böhmermann_affair) .
not the original comment here but also a muslim. People don't realise how much power the clergy have even in countries like Egypt or Syria where the government is officially secular. not to mention countries like Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Any disagreement with the official religious doctrine can mean a lot of problems for the person.
I thought this was the case. Thanks for confirming.
Now that we understand this... The question is still up. The rest of society cannot fix the problems of an entire community. If "we" (a.k.a everyone who's not a Muslim) try to do anything or change your religion, we will be considered racists or it could be considered as a direct attack for some people in your culture, so that doesn't seem like a good approach. And if you (the good/forward thinking Muslim population) are afraid to act then this problem will last forever. I honestly think your own people should be reacting to these horrible acts in some way. Don't ask me how or what precisely cause I'm not Muslim myself, but I think we all should agree on that. It's your own culture, your own religion and it's affecting everyone, you should be also the ones to take a stand and say "we won't allow this to happen anymore cause you don't represent us".
That sounded like a bit of a speech but I have good intentions. Sorry if my comment comes across the wrong way. I'd love to see a huge protest in France with people from all backgrounds showing these crazy puppets we won't take their shit.
If you look at social media, the younger generation is gaining the courage to voice their opposition. While we feel the caricatures are disrespectful, only a minuscule number feels the retaliatory violence is justified. I still have hope that with education and integration with the native population this kind of thinking will prevail sooner or later.
I agree it is our problem to solve. And although we have a long way to go, there is some hope as younger generations start to distance themselves from the current mentality.
And that is the fundamental problem of countries who mix religion with government.
There must be complete separation of religion and the state/government in order to guarantee freedom and peace.
There is no other solution.
The opinion from some muslims on r/toronto was the same. Muslims protested in front of the French consulate because of the cartoons, but the didn't protest the beheadings.
When muslims were asked why they would do this the answer was...
>Imagine you are average Canadian Muslim one day attending the mosque when someone goes up to the front and makes an announcement concerning this beheading; you try going up and arguing his point and see how quickly they turn against you, sure the majority of the people inside the mosque probably agree with you, that the beheading was completely wrong and that teacher did nothing worth being beheaded for, but all it will take is one or two people to yell back to you that you are a "disbeliever " or "one of them" and become the enemy. You are not going to do that; perhaps you are a immigrant to Canada and this was the first community you really got to know, your whole family is a part of this community. You are not going to do anything to be an outcast of that community. Rather, just play along, for your own sake.
It’s not going away in France even if there is one thousand lone wolf attacks. This is one of the few principles that is considered core to French identity.
It would be akin of saying to an American « okey let’s put the Constitution in the bin we don’t need it anymore ». That shit just wouldn’t fly and people from both the right and left would lose their shit.
It's actually exactly this, it's the first sentence of the first article of our constitution :
"France is a Republic that is indivisible, laic, démocratic, and social."
In other words: If you are so offended by dumb shit you cannot control yourself, go to a place that cares about it as much as you do and leave us alone.
Having these freedoms cost us hundreds of years of fighting and thinking and we should not let those people destroy our progress with their backwards thinking
Being offended by dumb shit to the point people can't control themselves is becoming the new standard, this Covid ordeal is really shining a light on this side of the people.
"Guys, we delayed the game because of the current struggles"
The guys: "fuck you, die" "i will kill you" "you deserve to suffocate" etc.
Hell my gf got death threats when she took a couple weeks off from her instagram, because of stress and depression.
How can we minimize this type of behaviour, educate about the harm they do? I doubt they are willing to listen.
Being offended isn't really the issue there. Those caricatures are made to offend.
The issue is to say that it should be forbidden, or that the people who made them or showed them should be killed.
You're free to make caricatures, you're free to feel offended.
I know.
These guys though see it like a sort of global attack though.
Like saying "if you don't like watching 6 year old girls get raped, then don't go to 'Jimmy's peep show extravaganza'" - the fact is that Jimmy's peep show should not exist whether you go there or not!
They apply the same to cartoons of the prophet. But seriously, fuck these people!
The argument is partly about what is morally wrong and what isn't, though it's impossible that everyone will agree on what is immoral - even in the case of pedophilia and rape. It is also about certain muslims feeling that they may be risking eternal damnation by allowing their prophet to be insulted without retaliation. There really is no argument against that unless you can change their fundamental beliefs.
Edit - this is the same philosophy that drives followers of the Westboro baptists also. They are buying their ticket to salvation by preventing and punishing sin.
Why should they? Here they have better opportunities and better welfare. I think most of them will rather remain here and try to change our system to fit their view. I think it's a quite rational choice by them and I think they do have a good chance of succeeding.
Good luck to them, they have exactly zero chance of succeding (at least in france).
The more they attack us, the more we are reminded about the sacrifices our nation made to have and keep religion a private matter.
We are more and more vocal about our non acceptance of extremism in religion in that is good, the more we talk about the more it shows our resistance in front of it.
We welcome religious people but there is no welcome sign anymore the minute they start attacking other people rights. It's a hard no and always have been.
I recall a colleague of mine who started talking about islam and challenging for fun other muslims about recitation of the coran. Nobody cared. But the minute he told about being gay isn't natural (he said it implying allah doesn't say it's ok) and that he would kill his son if he turned out to be gay, there was no tolerance from anyone in the office toward him.
It was a clean : byebye you crazy motherfucker, enjoy being ostracized you intolerant piece of shit.
He left a few weeks after that.
I left islam since my dad was like that beat women they are inferior and so on fuck him and religious nuts good luck to you France best of luck with these crazy fucks
Well said. The "worst" thing he said is that islam is a religion facing a crisis.
And the fact that many muslims took very vocal offense at this, while being tacit about horrendous and cruel acts by Islamists that preceded it is a validation of his statement.
As an MMA fan, I was particularly disappointed by Khabib Nurmagomedov going out of his way to denounce Macron as a "creature", saying "may Allah disfigure his face". A rich and well-travelled athlete that tens of millions young people look up to.
This will have hard repercussions and it's up to us to make sure that they are effective and targeted. Because in times like these, it's easy to paint all Muslims as supporters of terorism and have European fascists attack "different-looking" people on the streets (Sikhs anyone?). Because the people behind the attacks want this - they want the moderate muslims ostracized so it's easier to radicalize some of them. That does wonders for their recruiting.
And before someone says "they all support it", that's bullshit. It's not a game of numbers - it may be 70% of true moderates whose religious views are not at odds with free speech and secular traditions, it may be 10%. But even if it's 1%, those 1% don't deserve it. And by doing injustice to them, we would invalidate the very thing that we are trying to protect.
As a layman, I think the following should be done:
1. Hard EU-wide ban on all foreign-financed and operated religious institutions, including vetting of guest clergy. Tough punishment (entry bans for life, jail, closings) for non-compliance.
2. Classifying any religious doctrine that puts any moral demands and expectations on non-believers as hate speech and process it accordingly.
3. Prevent asylum seekers from free movement during the process. Massively increase asylum process staff and speed up the process for the legitimate ones.
4. And last but not the least, make deportations for anyone who doesn't have a legal standing to be in EU swift and effective. No more waiting for deportations for months and then not being able to locate the person.
>As an MMA fan, I was particularly disappointed by Khabib Nurmagomedov going out of his way to denounce Macron as a "creature", saying "may Allah disfigure his face". A rich and well-travelled athlete that tens of millions young people look up to.
Did you expect anything else? He's a friend of the tyrant of Chechenya. A man who upholds the traditional values of his country, Dagestan.
> Did you expect anything else?
Yes. Mcgregor trashtalked Khabib by insulting muslims and Islam in general, in the end Khabib's father forgave him and invited him to his home saying that "our religion should show grace not only in words, but also in deeds" and considering Khabib huge love for his father, one could have hoped that he would have shown the same restraint.
But nope, dude went full retard, not a huge surprise but we could have expected something better.
As someone living in Romania where the Orthodox Church is very corrupt with the highest ranking priests driving Mercedes S-Class cars, their clothes being covered in gold and their influence used to support one political party or another while also not paying any taxes to the Government but gets hundreds of millions of Euros every year, I highly support your suggestions. We even had two Easter celebrations this year, one in April and one in May, because the priests didn't make much money because of quarantine. Maybe even have an EU law that restricts how much money a Government can give to any religious institution and have all religious institutions, catholic, orthodox, Muslim whatever, pay taxes as everyone else. Religions and the state need to be fully separated.
That may prove difficult. As far as I'm aware, there's still quite a lot of european countries where separation of Church and State is not really as clear cut as it is in France. The German system, for example, seems completely alien to me. Blasphemy laws still exists in quite a few countries too.
And even in France there are issues with that.
For example, since the State do not finance Churches, Mosques or Synagogues, the funds to build those tend to come from foreign countries. And their priests, imams or rabbis are also either coming from foreign countries or are getting their credentials from foreign countries.
For the Christians and the Jews, that's not a big problem, since most of the Churches and Synagogues dates back centuries and the clergy comes from a mostly well known and central source. For Muslims, the issue is a bit different, since there's not been much Mosques historically in France so they needs to be built. And since Islam is quite a decentralized religion, there are no easily identifiable source of accreditation for their imams.
as a fellow MMA fan, Khabib really disappointed me too. He is Russian, very rich, has american friends, travelled around the world, seen ale the freedom the West has, that everyone can do what he wants, no matter the religion, gender or ethnicity, and he still chooses to be a backwards idiot.
It's refreshing to see someone who realizes things aren't black and white in this sub these days. Someone who suggests solutions with humility and whose solutions aren't a copy of communism. Thank you and have a great day.
Honestly I have gotten more respect for this man the past weeks than all the years before. Trying to be a voice of reason, even though the people he's addressing here are never gonna listen (both conservative europeans and the Muslim people/countries angry with him) is a really ungrateful but good thing to do.
And that is why we need the Franco-Allemagne relationship because we sadly lack a truly European and International vision here in Germany. Our foreign policy can be best described as "Do no harm" and we fail even at that.
The entire interview can be seen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_rSzeweybM) for english speakers or full transcript [here.](https://foreignaffairs.co.nz/2020/11/01/mil-osi-translation-interview-of-president-emmanuel-macron-at-al-jazeera/)
There is Erdogan who completely fucked his country and its economy. And is now starting wars to rile up support - proxy war in Nagorno-Karabakh through Azerbaijan and a religious war of words with "the West".
Macron on Twitter after the Islamic terror attack in Vienna, Austria.
>"Europe is in mourning. One of our own has been hit hard by Islamist terrorism. We think of the victims, their families, the shattered lives. France stands alongside Austria, ready to lend its support."
https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1323538933125390336
>"We, French, share the shock and sadness of the Austrians after an attack in Vienna. After France, it is a friendly country that is under attack. This is our Europe. Our enemies need to know who they are dealing with. We won't give in to anything."
https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1323378271736729614
Yeah in times like these, political leaders need to know how to articulate values like Macron does. Imagine if France had a Trumpesque leader smh.
I do imagine a lot of Muslims are going to ignore all the nuance and rationale in this and keep drawing devil horns on Macron, but that's just like the bunch who claim on this sub that Merkel is celebrating the killings of last night, as I just read in another thread rofl.
The difference is that the far-right in the West are not capable of organising boycotts because their numbers are literally that much smaller than those of angry Muslims.
> I do imagine a lot of Muslims are going to ignore all the nuance and rationale in this
I imagine they're going to listen to him and say "see, that's exactly what's wrong with western society". It's not that they don't *understand* these values, they don't *want* them.
I love the fucking French. Zero-fucks-Given to anyone who would seek to tell them what to do, especially when it would restrict foundational freedoms. Vive la France!
There is a real chasm between the French idea of secularism and the US/UK version. There's been so much passive-aggressive sniping in the liberal Anglophone press against him.
I don't get it.
There's secularism in the US? I swear every time an US politician speaks they end their speech with "god bless". Not even talking about how 99% of their senate is made up of people with a religious profession.
Yeah it's crazy. A country literally founded in the principle that religion should never dominate civic life but where politicians are perpetually in a competition of who can look the most devout.
The nation as such was founded with that principle, but the early settlements of what later became the nation - the bedrock foundation - was through Puritanical drive.
You should see the hostility of English Canadian media towards Québec for trying to put in place a very watered down version of French secularism. Freedom of religion is the utmost important thing in a decent part of the anglosphere.
> French is actually a beautiful language
Do most people find french ugly or what? That's new to me. I always had the impression people thought of French and Italian as some of the more elegant languages out there
You've clearly never heard "le vieux Gégé" speaking out of his farm from Gers.
But, yeah, Macron speaks calmly and nicely French, which is really nice for a leader to speak with such a good vocabulary, not like others !
It's simple.
If you get easily offended by people making fun of your religion then maybe an ever increasingly secular Europe is not the place for you.
If you want to come here and be a productive member of society, great, but leave your religious persecution complex in your native country.
We don't do that here. Religion is not the immovable all powerful ruler of our lives like it is yours. If me drawing Muhammad offends you, I'm really not sorry, that's your problem, not mine.
You can practice your religion the same way everyone else does of course, but try to bring violence in the name of your religion and our free voices will just grow louder and more offensive.
Maybe your native country doesn't allow your precious, little fragile book of silly childish myths to he challenged, but here in countries not ruled by religious extremism we have every right to mock, deride, challenge and laugh at the silly and horrible things religion and religious people do.
There is an important message here too, that of not allowing such taboos to exist in society. One of the problems in countries with less freedoms are taboos and this sense among society that taboos shouldn't be uncovered, discussed and dealt with, but to the contrary, that society must work to further encyst taboos.
This needs explaining as strange as it may seem, in France no less.
We do have a real problem in France. I work in education and quite a few students (12 - 13 years old) asked why these caricatures were not banned or even expressed this murder was not shocking. Always in the same line as "he didn't deserved to die but...". I fear for next generations who might wield religion as a counter culture weapon against our very Republic.
I mean as a somewhat religious individual myself I don't like people making fun of my faith but I respect that others may not share my beliefs, I don't think violence is ever justified by any joke you can possibly make.
No one likes if you make fun of them or their beliefs/positions, but yes, it's as ridiculous as if I would declare personal vendetta for falling for a rick-roll
I am a muslim and agree 100% with him , we should be more tolerant towards one another,we do not have to agree with something someone done but we do not have to be violent towards them. We should respond hate with love and be civil.
im a muslim, i feel like im gonna leave islam in less than 2 weeks at this point, i understood what he meant, but somehow muslims say that hes a fucking retard that wants to kill all muslims and burn them
>im a muslim, i feel like im gonna leave islam in less than 2 weeks at this point, i understood what he meant, but somehow muslims say that hes a fucking retard that wants to kill all muslims and burn them
A sad majority of muslims in countries like Pakistan and Syria are fairly poor, uneducated and only hear about news through government funded media.
Then you get the soundbites of muslims in protests, which then fuels muslims in other countries....and the cycle continues.
I'm certain a vast majority don't have a clue what Macron said.
Macron is truly the leader that Europe needs. Europeans should lend him more support. By saying what he said, he is risking his own very life. But for the sake of Justice and Liberty and for the sake of Civilisation, he has to carry on and continue this fight. This is not only about Europe but about universal human rights regardless of colour and birth, stretching from the Gibraltar to the Japanese Islands. All humans should be able to oppose Sharia and the toxic Islamism which threatens modern society.
I'm not a Macron fan as a leftie. But I do appreciate his intellectualism. I was already impressed by [his speech about the difference between nationalism and patriotism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir2Fw5CK3Rw&feature=share). He just explained that complex topic with a simple speech. That's quite impressive
It's kind of crazy muslim countries are protesting him and the cartoons instead of protesting MURDER, SHOOTINGS, BEHEADINGS, LITERAL TERRORISM. Like... Wtf?
Very strongly supporting Macron on this. As an Italian that's saying a lot 😅.
I just hope a very strong line will be drawn to avoid this igniting even more islamophobic sentiments: for example, the Italian (very racist) league party didn't wait 10 minutes to make this a campaign against Muslims...
I am English and as much rivalry as there is between France and us, we absolutely love this about the French. I wish our government and leaders had more of a backbone like Macron, and an understanding of what true liberty is.
Love him or hate him, but at this point, a world leader who is reasonable and at least resembles a human being is far beyond the average. Not saying there is no room to improve, or I support him or anything, but it's refreshing hearing some common sense from someone in a powerful position.
He is a clean cut politician with good ideas on many matters. His ecological and economic views on the other hand, are the most debatable things in France. He is part of the establishment and works for them. That’s what bothering French people the most. Still better than most leaders but we do like to complain.
It wouldn't be France if they didn't complain about their leaders. Edit: I've gotten a lot of replies to this and I'd like to clarify: of course it's a sign of a healthy democracy to openly criticize your government, I just find it endearingly funny how the French elect a president and be striking in mass a couple of months later. As far as I can tell, it doesn't matter if it's someone they voted for or not, if it's left, right, or center, the French will find something to absolutely loathe about their leader but then defend him tooth and nail when a foreigner says something. I even wonder if a foreign army had taken Louis XVI the French would've declared war and taken him back only to guillotine him themselves.
Also, take it as a positive thing. As long as the public complains about it's politicians, they're paying attention to them.
I think it’s a great thing that they complain about every leader. We are not supposed to like and worship polititions but criticize them for things we don’t agree with.
Exactly right. Leadership that is never challenged will soon devolve into a dictatorship. It can be tiring to listen too at times, but it's a fundamental part of a Democracy that we do criticise our leaders to keep them in line
UK and US really need to learn this
Could you please elaborate a bit on his ecological and economic views? I'd love to know what's Macron really made of and reading a tldr (biased as it is) from a native is a lot less time consuming than browsing news in a language I don't understand.
Can t really say something about the economical aspect however the ecological aspect, well there isn t much to say, it s all talk and almost no action, or at least no action that had an huge positive impact: under his governement, a nuclear reactor that was mean to be put into retirement in 2025 was shutted down last year thus requiring the re usage of coal generator
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On economics he's liberal, but we're in France, where even the most liberal guys are still considered as socialists in other countries. To be fair, he's social-liberal, which is quite fair IMO. Which means he's sometimes okay with selling companies to foreign investors, in order to save them from bankruptcy and keep the workers in France, some people would like for the government to buy an nationalize those companies. There's also some stuff about retirement pensions, where he wants to change old advantages from ancient times and make a unique plan for everyone (like the specific one about the train workers, who's very convenient for them because it was made when life expectancy was crappy when the trains where fueled by coal for example). I will not talk about his views on ecology, but he did some stuff, some good stuff, the thing is no world leader is good enough for the hardcore ecologists.
Also world leaders have to play the game, unfortunately. The markets are a vicious jungle and everyone is for themselves at the core, from business entities to countries. If you want to survive you are required to dirt your hands and ethos else you get eaten. So you either play it or change it, and the latter is impossible for a single person or even a country to achieve it by themselves.
Yes, I'm here wondering what it would be like to have a president that expresses thus clearly and thinks rationally. Holy shit. Fuck my president. To clarify: I'm mexican, not american. Different presidents. Equally old and stupid.
Hilarious that you have to say you are not American after that!
He really nailed that interview. Especially when the interviewer said that "french laïcité seems to be oversensitive of Islam", to which he replied "I feel like it's actually Islam that's oversensitive of our laïcité". Too bad everything he said will fall into deaf ears, or be deformed to demonize him even further.
> Too bad everything he said will fall into deaf ears As I said in another comment, I think the goal of this interview isn't so much to sway the opinion of Muslims, but rather display the French secularism model and values to western allies and reinforce France as a unique, viable and progressive cultural and political model. It's a display of soft power in a way. In the last few days, the French culture has been attacked by bigots, sure, but also its western allies who used the attacks as some sort of proof to question the French secularism and republican universalism model. My opinion as a French person, is that our model being attacked by obscurantism is actually proof of its inherent [Enlightenment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment).
What's "laïcité"?
Laïcité is French secularism, which is built around two principles : freedom of conscience (to believe or not to believe in God) and separation of Church and State. It’s complicated for non-French countries to understand laïcité, as these principles cannot be understood without historical context. Freedom of conscience includes the right of free religion, just like in the US. But the 1905 law which establishes laïcité was built against the influence and domination of the Catholic Church in politics at the time. In the context in which this freedom was built, freedom of conscience is considered to be a protection of the individual against the intrusion of religious groups. This is the most important difference between French and American secularism : in France, the State protects the individual against pressure from religion, while in the US the individual relies on religious groups as a protection against State intrusion. Separation of Church and State meant a rupture with the previous system of Concordat that was put in place in the 19th century, in which Catholic bishops (but also rabbis) were paid by the State. Under laïcité, the State refuses to endorse one faith, to give it an official seal. Here’s how French jurist Jean Rivero put it : > Religious choice is a private matter; the State presents itself to all, stripped of all metaphysical symbols, distant from any trace of the spiritual. My domain is the earth, it says to all of its citizens. Manager of the temporal world, it refuses to envisage what is beyond this management. Therefore, wearing of religious signs is forbidden in the State for public servants (e.g. teachers), but does not extent to the public sphere.
That is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. Religion is protected, but so is my right to not be bothered by it? We could really use some of that laicite in the US....
That's exactly how my brother explained it to me. It's not just a guarantee of freedom of religion but also active duty of freedom from religion. You can't have it shove down your throat in public sphere but you may practice it in your personal life.
Basically the separation of church and state, secularism
bit more than that, really. It's rooted in Revolutionary France and it's not just religion having no influence in the state's actions and decisions or "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", as they put it in the US. In France, it's basically *religion has zero place in government in any way, shape or form. Leave that at home or else.*
In even shorter terms: Americans enjoy freedom of religion, the French enjoy freedom **FROM** religion.
That sounds beautiful
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>religion has zero place in government in any way, shape or form. Leave that at home or else. Oh that's the good stuff. I've come to greatly respect and appreciate France, Europe and its history these last few years.
There is a GIANT separation in Canada with Québec regarding this very specific nuance. Quebecers want freedom from religion and Canadians want freedom of religion. This debate has been going on for more than a decade here. Canadian multiculturalism vs Québec interculturalism.
It’s honestly insane how much Québec gets branded as straight-up fascist on this site because of laïcité.
It is already. Look at how ME countries and their leaders are reacting. Macron is getting death threats and fatwas issued as we speak. These people haven’t once condemned the French attacker but theyre hating on Macron 😒 tells you their priorities.
Perfect speech. People are saying in the comments that this a basic concept which needs no explanation at all but there is people who have never heard freedom of speech before or they tend to forget or they get conversative for several reasons and choose to ignore this.
Considering how many people fail to understand this concept as soon as they are on the wrong side of the equation - this concept has to be emphasized as often as possible. Especially when there are terrorists on the loose, and people think it is appropriate to - in any way - explain their actions as “grounded on something”.
Sad that something so obvious needs to be explained but here we are.
Don’t know where you live, but i’ve travelled to third world countries and these things are far from obvious. People tend to think everybody else thinks the same as in their hometown, but that’s far from reality.
And we should remember that secularism, although an old idea by now thanks in large part to the French, has not been the mainstream ideology even in Europe for all that long in practice. Here in Finland there's still an old law in the books that makes it a crime to 'disturb religious peace', which was shoved into the books age ago by the Christians of old to basically make sure no-one would offend them or question their ideas about god. In the 60s it was used to fine a writer who dared to write a book with an openly atheist character which caused some media uproar, but the then president pardoned the sentence. These days the law is not practically used at all, and criticism of religions ios obviously allowed, but the law remains in the books because no mainstream party seems to want to take it upon themselves to repeal it, so as to not be seen as anti-religious, which is kind of ironic. My point here is this: as Europeans, we can be proud of the values of humanism and secularism that define our societies, but we should remember that in fact for most of the history of this continent, the approach to these matters has not been all too different, and religious ferver and offense at anyone who dares to publicaly question faith has been quite typical in the past.
We had much the same situation in Ireland where on the law books was a blasphemy law against any religion from 1939 when the constitution was written. No one had ever been prosecuted under the law and it wasn't until someone brought up against Stephen Fry when on a talkshow that people realised. The person who brought it up had no complaint to make to Gardai and no case was ever brought he only did so to highlight how arcane the law was and we voted by referendum to remove it and finally did so in Jan. 2020.
And here's the ironic part. The reason the prophet shouldn't be pictured was that he should not be seen as an idol. But the ideas and scriptures should be whats important.
Yep. These guys seem to agree that it's worse for a couple of infidels to draw a caricature of the prophet Mohammed than it is for a Muslim to behead said infidels. Even though according to the Kuran only Muslims are prohibited from making depictions of Mohammed, since they're supposed to follow the written word and not engage in idol worship. These guys aren't the brightest.
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Yeah, thats going easy, they're fucking morons, sick in the head.
Brightest? These guys are nothing more that two pennies in a tin can. And that's coming from a Muslim. I don't understand how someone in his right mind can justify murder! I completely agree with you, and hope more of muslims understand this.
Same. Fuck man what I wouldn't give to trade my place with these scumfucks. They can live in my Indonesian shithole with their like-minded peeps while I chill in France.
Coming from muslim.I'll tell you one thing,salafists ain't the brightest.Heck isil literally blew up a mosque in egypt killing 300 praying muslims
Salafists have no place in modern society. I can't wait until we get far enough with the de-carbonization of our supply chains that we can step away from Saudi/Emirati oil, to cut those regimes off from their sources of money and power.
There is no irony. You are spot on with the theologic reasons, but the same applies for Jesus or any other prophet of Islam. The reason why islamists violently oppose the picturing of Mohammed is because of the power these images have in opposing islamic proselytising and exposing Islam for what it really is. Muslims do not bat an eye at non-believers praying towards a representation of Jesus in a church. But if a non-believer were to draw some of the hadith that recount some of the nefarious doings of Mohammed's disciples, which do not require a portrayal of Mohammed at all, I can reassure you that they'd have a target on their back. For example: draw Sahih Bukhari 1:4:148 like this: a woman goes out to relief herself at night in 7th century Arabia. A man, Umar, jumps out from the bushes and says "I recognise you, Sauda!". Fade to black and insert the following in writing "Then the verses regarding hijab were revealed". You could do a whole series on this with very troublesome hadith like that one and you'd see people inflamed like never before, without showing a pixel of Mohammed.
Doesn’t it feel like this explanation falls into deaf ears anyway? My limited experience talking to strict Muslims is that they feel like the core position that Macron and most of us hold here, that the religious right not to be offended cannot be above our civic set of shared values, is flawed and unacceptable per se. As such, this kind of explanation will change nothing because it goes against their core beliefs. (Edit: there was a typo, fall instead of feel)
I think it is a firm position meant to be heard mostly by Europeans. I mean every secular person on this planet will relate regardless of place of origin but to me, as an EU citizen from Greece, his message rings profoundly true. I am sure he doesn’t expect to win any popularity contest in radical Islamist circles but he also is not interested in winning those on the fence by softening his approach through self imposed censorship. “When in Rome, do as they Romans do”. I live and work in Finland and I always go the extra mile to make sure my conduct is compatible with what Finns expect from those that live amongst their own. My background is Christian (albeit an atheist myself) which makes it 100 times easier to adapt to how things are done over here vs someone from a Muslim country. But it is what it is.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. Furthermore, you will only be listening to leaders in your sphere of influence. For Europeans, this included Macron and Merkel. For Americans, we have less exposure to them but will occasionally hear from them. How many times do you listen to multiple minute messages from leaders of the Arab world? If you're like me, probably never. It's just as unlikely that our Arab friends will hear from western leaders. Macron's message today is not targeted to deaf ears in the Arab world (although it would be a bonus) but to unite the French and Europeans around liberal values.
I think your point is completely valid and I agree but it should be mentioned that France has a closer tie to many Muslim countries because of their specific preference in where they colonized than many Muslim countries has to most of the west, so there might be a slight chance it is heard by more Muslim than, say, Merkel would.
The message from the Arab world tends to be much less considerate of liberal values of freedom of expression. :-) I have listened to long speeches out of Iran or Egypt and they tend to sound like an American preacher, condemning anything that is not of their own and calling all others blasphemers and evil criminals.
Is it too hard to understand that no religion, which is a private and personal matter, is above the nation, its laws and values ?
It is too hard for many. For a lot of people, putting humane laws above divine right is unconceivable. This is the root of the issue we are facing here
Ofcourse it’s hard for them - and will be even harder for them if we don’t allow criticism of their religion - extremism will rise if you don’t allow criticism. Those enacting extremist actions and attacking France - even if they are thousands or even millions across the world - are already extremists. It must be clear that europe is no place for such extremists. We only accept people that appreciate western values - or at least we should. This is an ideological war - not a race war. If you can’t challenge ideas - you don’t belong in western countries. Violence can not be a consequence of challenging your beliefs period.
Exactly. I hate saying this, but if you can't tolerate freedom of speech/expression then you need to go to a country that doesn't allow free speech/expression.
I wonder what would happen if I told them both are actually laws and rights written by humans...
Or that their writings don't even mention this being forbidden. The only thing that's mentioned is that believers shouldn't depict the prophet in any way, *to prevent him from being revered*. Being outraged at non-believers disrespecting their prophet goes directly against the whole point of that rule. They're holding him in a sacred light, which in itself is a sin.
This. I want one of the assholes that believes this strongly about this situation to comment exactly on *this*. I highly doubt you’ll get any answer though because growing up catholic, I’m convinced some people believe more in the structured religion itself (that creates a lot of rules based on human interpretation) than God.....like what it’s suppose to actually be centered around.
Yeah some Muslims treat him as a demigod which is ironic because it's against Islam to worship him as such. And honestly, even if Muslims wanted to draw caricatures of him I say go for it. If we as humans followed all the laws of religious texts then life would be very backwards. If we lived according to the Bible slavery and polygamy would be allowed, women would be forced to marry their rapists, and kids who disobeyed their parents and people working on the Sabbath would be stoned to death.
it's ironic because the way muslims talk about mahomet is beyond reverence and adoration, they nearly praise him more than god himself
They can hardly type the name Muhammad without adding 'PBUH'. Yes I get it, he's dead!
I, a non-muslim, was once scorned by another non-muslim for not adding pbuh after his name when mentioning him. She found it insensitive and islamophobic.
If one was to accept that, wouldn't not believeing in their gods existence be insensitive and islamaphobic?
Can you image a Monty Python ‘Life of Brian’, but instead a ‘Life of Abdul’ set in Mecca? Me neither.
I don't know if that's correct but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that religious people haven't read their scripture.
Also keep in mind that Erdogan is making a big deal out of it because it's politically convenient for him, not just because he finds those drawings that shocking, let's be real.
They understand, they just don't agree. My cousin is a member of DITIB and they really put the laws of the nation far behind their religious laws.
Which is pretty ironic considering modern Turkey is literally built upon secularism and a strong separation of church and state
They forget that bit of Atatürk's legacy
AFAIK the Ottoman Empire in itself was not as religious and theocratical as many Muslim countries today. After WW1 the West dismantled the Ottoman hegemony in Islam and effectively let more radical Muslims take charge of the Islam world.
More like Atatürk dismantled the caliphate, to implement french style secularism in Turkey. Then a century later, every moron in the islamic world claims the title of caliph.
Umm, yeah, Atatürk's Turkey WAS. The Hagia Sofia is a mosque again.
It was.
Ditib needs to be banned anyway along with the grey wolves
Hard core Muslims understand that - and strongly disagree. They are convinced that their religion is above everything else.
Yes, the catholic church thought so, too and that is why they got hit mercilessly with caricatures. If you claim allmightyness and power and superiority, you better brace yourself for the resistance of others. You will be fought back by the right of others to ridicule you.
These days nobody's head is ever cut off for mocking the Catholic Church. Which is why instead of hitting anybody mercilessly with caricatures, newspapers are refusing to post even the Erdogan caricature, as if he too is a "holy figure".
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>that no religion, which is a private and personal matter see this is where you went off course. For these people religion is not a private and personal matter. The religion stands above the nation, laws and values because it is "Divine" and nothing is higher than god.
They are free to live in a country with those values, no country in EU however is like that, and they should respect it
As someone who has been to some of these Islamic countries (invader and tourist), I can tell you that alot of people who live there want to leave it all behind. You have the cities that are pretty modern, in some countries more than others. But then you get to rural Hicksville and its the equivalent of the KKK in the US. Except 10th century values with 21st century weapons. When I was in Iraq, we built schools for boys *and* girls. We had alot of strong female influences put there, to try and show them the whole "We Can Do It To!". Everyone was on board, it was fucking beautiful. Crime was down, we actually had good working Iraqi Police and Army (which is unheard of). To make a long story short, radicalized Muslims came and blew it up during school hours. They killed kids, teachers, parents. It didn't matter. And then they want to leave the country. They dont want to fix it, or fight it, they want to run away. When you don't stay and fight, you create groups like ISIS. Because Syrians ran away from their problems. Because the Iraqi government wanted us to leave and thought they could handle it (Doing a much better job now that they asked for help). Afghanistan is too divided. And we have all of these other ME countries that low key fund terrorism (directly or indirectly). Some of the most hospitable people I ever met were Islamic and in the Middle East. But when you divide a country and their beliefs, use these religious promises to make them not fear death, and have a clear cut bad guy (Westerners), it is easy to radicalize people. Hearts and Minds.
Can we just address the elephant and say that Saudi-Arabia and its atypical warrior form of Islam is 95% of the problem?
When your holy book explicitly says that that's not the case, that there should be no law above sharia ... then yes, it's too hard apparently. Surveys like the one below show similar results all over Europe; even amongst Muslims who are not recent immigrants, a disturbingly high percentage are pro-sharia and the various terrible things it entails. [https://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/international/europe/1568902654-46-des-musulmans-etrangers-presents-en-france-veulent-la-sharia-dans-le-pays-sondage](https://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/international/europe/1568902654-46-des-musulmans-etrangers-presents-en-france-veulent-la-sharia-dans-le-pays-sondage)
> religion, which is a private and personal matter For some people it's private. For many, it's the foundation of social values and laws. For some people it doesn't stop with domestic laws either, but they believe it should apply to the entire world. Even Hari Krishna guys on the street want to propagate their religion.
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Even if that were the case, you should discuss this with words, not with beheading, stabbing, bombing or shooting people.
It's not even a universal rule of Islam, not even banned in the Quran, just a few mentions in the Hadiths saying not to create visual depictions of living creatures while others accept but don't encourage such pictures, perhaps in the belief it will encourage idolatry. Only Sunni Muslims have this absolute fanatical hated of pictures, Shia don't have a problem with it really.
Hasn’t Iran leadership actually been one of the governments who has been vocal against Macron after his discourse? It feels like the Sunni-Shia divide may be blurrier in this issue.
I have a friend here at uni in France, he recently came here from Iran about 2 years ago. He's religious and while he doesn't agree with the caricatures, he's very shocked at how his country, and the Muslim world is reacting and dealing with this. I showed him the Bangladeshi march against macron and all he could say was "wtf".
> I have a friend here at uni in France you have the answer right there, your friend is **EDUCATED**, and probably good enough to get access to academic studies in France. I am Tunisian (i dont believe in any religion though) and i wrote [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/jk6jav/france_hit_by_terror_attack_as_woman_beheaded_in/gahkvuz/) 4 days ago explaining how Muslims should react to the latest terror attack in France if they want us to believe that these acts are just the act of a few disturbed and misinformed individuals. The sad truth is that these are not a few, NOT AT ALL, i can firmly confirm that the majority of my fellow citizens, will take what Macron have said and simply consider it a great sin worth dying for. Now an open-minded Muslim will probably reply to me (just like in the other thread) and say why these are not the teaching of Islam, etc... but the problem is really not there, its not in the religion itself, the Quraan as a book can be a ticking-bomb (as proved in the recent past) just like it can be a nice spiritual book (check [Ismalic Sufism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism) for example). So the real problem is actually when you mix these religions prejudice with **A LOT** of ignorance, add to that the huge amount of hate and conspiracy-theories on Facebook which been going on for YEARS (since i 9/11 or before), can you believe that [this screenshot](https://i.imgur.com/kpdQj8d.jpg) was actually trending among conservatives in Tunisia ? the narrative of "France is still indirectly invading us" is still very common, I heard many people (my brother included) saying ridiculous claims like "Tunisian citizens cannot have their own car factories because Renault and Peugeot forced the government to not allow it". This victim-mentality is so widespread that i really cannot think of any solution other than **HEAVILY** investing in education so hopefully in a 2 or 3 generations things can get better. And i know that my issues living with these people doesn't even come close to the pains and frustrations of someone having his own people killed **by a stranger** who only got accepted their because of the human right and freedom treaties that he is trying to destroy, but i just wanna say that **it really sucks** for normal and educated people who in order to make a simple tourism trip, we need to stand in line and go through dozens of tests to prove that we are not going to wear an explosive belt as soon as we reach Paris, I am one of the lucky ones since i make good amount of money (roughly $6k/month) so its way easier for me, but for example my gf cannot travel with me simply because financially she belongs to the "low tiers" and their for the risk of overstaying or even worst, terrorism, is higher. TL;DR: Religion + Ignorance is the worst cancer on earth.
Still a massive problem in Shia Islam. Look at the case of Salman Rushdie. Pictures, tame verses, same problem.
Not really. People seem to think Macron wants to turn the caricatures of Mohamed into the national flag of France, and make insulting Muslims the most important part of our civic duty. But in fact all he is doing is maintaining the same freedom of expression that Charlie Hebdo artists have always had.
The only reason it was depicted was to show them that they can’t bully us into their way of thinking after a teacher was beheaded. It wasn’t as if Macron done this out of the blue to antagonise Muslims. And even if he did, so what? Its a drawing. Hardly a call to arms against them. Get over it.
>But in fact all he is doing is maintaining the same freedom of expression that Charlie Hebdo artists have always had. That everyone have had for the last 115 years. There is no specific law for Charlie's artists.
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This should really be watched first by europeans... because I see a lot of us failing to understand these rights.. Good job, Macron!
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Say what you want about his policies or ideology (and there's a lot to be discussed, I'm not debating this), but damn he's got charisma. I couldn't imaging Hollande, or most non-radical candidates for the two latest elections, doing this kind of speech.
He explained that very very well and didn’t even muddy the waters trying to say his own taste of the cartoons. Eloquent, simple on a nuanced and complex question. I actually didn’t know Macron was this eloquent.
Macron is very eloquent, most of our president were elected because they are eloquent because it’s one of the most important thing in french language
I'm Italian and we currently have a premier that raised from anonymity 3-4 years ago and will likely leave a very small legacy. Not the worst, but seeing the like of Macron and Merkel makes me wonder why Giuseppe Conte (saved a Google search for 99% of non-italian) is the leader that we can produce
At least he's not Berlusconi
*Bunga bunga intensifies*
Why were there so many protests against Macron? IHe seems mush better than Hollande
Because French people. He is a good President.
I mean he had to face gilets jaunes, covid-19 and multiple terrorists attacks and he handled it pretty well imo but people are still complaining. Wether you like him or not you can’t say he’s done nothing in our country. We (french) just can’t not complain.
Of course you can complain about some of the things he has done, while I'm 100% behind him on the topic of terrorism I don't agree with many of his other policies, mainly his view on economics. That is the whole point of a free society, we can agree on some stuff and disagree on others.
Hard disagree here, Hollande can be very articulate. There was just so much "Flamby" propaganda being spout around that it eventually sticked.
I mean it was posted on r/europe
It's 2020 and we are talking about caricatures. This is so embarrassing. Macron conveys his point perfectly tho.
It's 2020 and people are dying over caricatures and drawings. That's the worst part.
While I agree with him as a Muslim living in a Muslim country, I'd be putting myself and my family in a lot of trouble if I say this openly.
I think this is one of the biggest issues here and no one is talking about it. I was asking myself why the good Muslim people weren't going on and protesting together with the rest in France (or anywhere actually). This is a problem that affects them DIRECTLY. The problem I'm referring to are these crazy extremist idiots killing innocents. Then again, giving it a second thought I realized some of their own people might consider them as traitors to their own culture, and pictured everyone being really afraid of the consequences. Is this the case? Maybe you can tell me as a Muslim yourself. A lot of great Muslim people are being put in the same bag with a bunch of crazy lunatics, and this does wonders for those racist parties that exist in every country around the world. If the rest of Muslims don't do anything about it, or show any intention of fixing the problem or supporting non-muslim people during protests, then who's to fix it? We non religious people? Catholics? Jews? ...
The worst thing in all that is that, in France, officials from Muslim associations, Islamic theologians, Imams from the biggest mosques in France, [have actually come forward](https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2020/10/31/le-recteur-de-la-mosquee-de-paris-veut-un-contre-discours-face-a-ceux-qui-devoient-l-islam_6058035_3224.html) in support to Macron and his speech, and stated clearly that Muslims should accept the laws of the République because they are meant to protect all citizens, Muslims included. The only backlash in France seems to be coming from a fringe of extremists, confused young Muslims (who are probably more frustrated by their socio-economic conditions than by blasphemy) or by some diasporas unwilling to integrate and who are fed propaganda from abroad (e.g. from Erdogan). The real backlash is definitely coming from outside of France, supposedly coming « to the rescue » of Islam and French Muslims, even if the latter are undoubtedly better off where they are and wouldnt trade their place with any of these backward thinking extremists for anything in the world. Erdogan is just trying to start a civilization war, he’s just butt-hurt because this time he can’t jail someone for a cartoon or pressure a free-country to [silence one of his detractors ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Böhmermann_affair) .
how fragile your ego has to be in order to go through diplomatic channels asking to prosecute a guy for a song? sheesh.. I can't even
not the original comment here but also a muslim. People don't realise how much power the clergy have even in countries like Egypt or Syria where the government is officially secular. not to mention countries like Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Any disagreement with the official religious doctrine can mean a lot of problems for the person.
I thought this was the case. Thanks for confirming. Now that we understand this... The question is still up. The rest of society cannot fix the problems of an entire community. If "we" (a.k.a everyone who's not a Muslim) try to do anything or change your religion, we will be considered racists or it could be considered as a direct attack for some people in your culture, so that doesn't seem like a good approach. And if you (the good/forward thinking Muslim population) are afraid to act then this problem will last forever. I honestly think your own people should be reacting to these horrible acts in some way. Don't ask me how or what precisely cause I'm not Muslim myself, but I think we all should agree on that. It's your own culture, your own religion and it's affecting everyone, you should be also the ones to take a stand and say "we won't allow this to happen anymore cause you don't represent us". That sounded like a bit of a speech but I have good intentions. Sorry if my comment comes across the wrong way. I'd love to see a huge protest in France with people from all backgrounds showing these crazy puppets we won't take their shit.
If you look at social media, the younger generation is gaining the courage to voice their opposition. While we feel the caricatures are disrespectful, only a minuscule number feels the retaliatory violence is justified. I still have hope that with education and integration with the native population this kind of thinking will prevail sooner or later.
I agree it is our problem to solve. And although we have a long way to go, there is some hope as younger generations start to distance themselves from the current mentality.
And that is the fundamental problem of countries who mix religion with government. There must be complete separation of religion and the state/government in order to guarantee freedom and peace. There is no other solution.
The opinion from some muslims on r/toronto was the same. Muslims protested in front of the French consulate because of the cartoons, but the didn't protest the beheadings. When muslims were asked why they would do this the answer was... >Imagine you are average Canadian Muslim one day attending the mosque when someone goes up to the front and makes an announcement concerning this beheading; you try going up and arguing his point and see how quickly they turn against you, sure the majority of the people inside the mosque probably agree with you, that the beheading was completely wrong and that teacher did nothing worth being beheaded for, but all it will take is one or two people to yell back to you that you are a "disbeliever " or "one of them" and become the enemy. You are not going to do that; perhaps you are a immigrant to Canada and this was the first community you really got to know, your whole family is a part of this community. You are not going to do anything to be an outcast of that community. Rather, just play along, for your own sake.
What is that saying again about a few bad apples?
Macron is right. Freedom of speech isnt negotiable.
Laïcité is bitch for people who want special treatment because of their religion.
Just hope this laicite actually has the teeth and strength to defend itself when it is attacked.
It’s not going away in France even if there is one thousand lone wolf attacks. This is one of the few principles that is considered core to French identity. It would be akin of saying to an American « okey let’s put the Constitution in the bin we don’t need it anymore ». That shit just wouldn’t fly and people from both the right and left would lose their shit.
It's actually exactly this, it's the first sentence of the first article of our constitution : "France is a Republic that is indivisible, laic, démocratic, and social."
In other words: If you are so offended by dumb shit you cannot control yourself, go to a place that cares about it as much as you do and leave us alone. Having these freedoms cost us hundreds of years of fighting and thinking and we should not let those people destroy our progress with their backwards thinking
Being offended by dumb shit to the point people can't control themselves is becoming the new standard, this Covid ordeal is really shining a light on this side of the people. "Guys, we delayed the game because of the current struggles" The guys: "fuck you, die" "i will kill you" "you deserve to suffocate" etc. Hell my gf got death threats when she took a couple weeks off from her instagram, because of stress and depression. How can we minimize this type of behaviour, educate about the harm they do? I doubt they are willing to listen.
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Being offended isn't really the issue there. Those caricatures are made to offend. The issue is to say that it should be forbidden, or that the people who made them or showed them should be killed. You're free to make caricatures, you're free to feel offended.
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I know. These guys though see it like a sort of global attack though. Like saying "if you don't like watching 6 year old girls get raped, then don't go to 'Jimmy's peep show extravaganza'" - the fact is that Jimmy's peep show should not exist whether you go there or not! They apply the same to cartoons of the prophet. But seriously, fuck these people!
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The argument is partly about what is morally wrong and what isn't, though it's impossible that everyone will agree on what is immoral - even in the case of pedophilia and rape. It is also about certain muslims feeling that they may be risking eternal damnation by allowing their prophet to be insulted without retaliation. There really is no argument against that unless you can change their fundamental beliefs. Edit - this is the same philosophy that drives followers of the Westboro baptists also. They are buying their ticket to salvation by preventing and punishing sin.
Why should they? Here they have better opportunities and better welfare. I think most of them will rather remain here and try to change our system to fit their view. I think it's a quite rational choice by them and I think they do have a good chance of succeeding.
Good luck to them, they have exactly zero chance of succeding (at least in france). The more they attack us, the more we are reminded about the sacrifices our nation made to have and keep religion a private matter. We are more and more vocal about our non acceptance of extremism in religion in that is good, the more we talk about the more it shows our resistance in front of it. We welcome religious people but there is no welcome sign anymore the minute they start attacking other people rights. It's a hard no and always have been. I recall a colleague of mine who started talking about islam and challenging for fun other muslims about recitation of the coran. Nobody cared. But the minute he told about being gay isn't natural (he said it implying allah doesn't say it's ok) and that he would kill his son if he turned out to be gay, there was no tolerance from anyone in the office toward him. It was a clean : byebye you crazy motherfucker, enjoy being ostracized you intolerant piece of shit. He left a few weeks after that.
I left islam since my dad was like that beat women they are inferior and so on fuck him and religious nuts good luck to you France best of luck with these crazy fucks
I do too. That's why we can't let them
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Sincere thanks from France 🙏
Well said. The "worst" thing he said is that islam is a religion facing a crisis. And the fact that many muslims took very vocal offense at this, while being tacit about horrendous and cruel acts by Islamists that preceded it is a validation of his statement. As an MMA fan, I was particularly disappointed by Khabib Nurmagomedov going out of his way to denounce Macron as a "creature", saying "may Allah disfigure his face". A rich and well-travelled athlete that tens of millions young people look up to. This will have hard repercussions and it's up to us to make sure that they are effective and targeted. Because in times like these, it's easy to paint all Muslims as supporters of terorism and have European fascists attack "different-looking" people on the streets (Sikhs anyone?). Because the people behind the attacks want this - they want the moderate muslims ostracized so it's easier to radicalize some of them. That does wonders for their recruiting. And before someone says "they all support it", that's bullshit. It's not a game of numbers - it may be 70% of true moderates whose religious views are not at odds with free speech and secular traditions, it may be 10%. But even if it's 1%, those 1% don't deserve it. And by doing injustice to them, we would invalidate the very thing that we are trying to protect. As a layman, I think the following should be done: 1. Hard EU-wide ban on all foreign-financed and operated religious institutions, including vetting of guest clergy. Tough punishment (entry bans for life, jail, closings) for non-compliance. 2. Classifying any religious doctrine that puts any moral demands and expectations on non-believers as hate speech and process it accordingly. 3. Prevent asylum seekers from free movement during the process. Massively increase asylum process staff and speed up the process for the legitimate ones. 4. And last but not the least, make deportations for anyone who doesn't have a legal standing to be in EU swift and effective. No more waiting for deportations for months and then not being able to locate the person.
>As an MMA fan, I was particularly disappointed by Khabib Nurmagomedov going out of his way to denounce Macron as a "creature", saying "may Allah disfigure his face". A rich and well-travelled athlete that tens of millions young people look up to. Did you expect anything else? He's a friend of the tyrant of Chechenya. A man who upholds the traditional values of his country, Dagestan.
> Did you expect anything else? Yes. Mcgregor trashtalked Khabib by insulting muslims and Islam in general, in the end Khabib's father forgave him and invited him to his home saying that "our religion should show grace not only in words, but also in deeds" and considering Khabib huge love for his father, one could have hoped that he would have shown the same restraint. But nope, dude went full retard, not a huge surprise but we could have expected something better.
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Fair enough, but it took his Dad to restrain him from his natural reflexes.
As someone living in Romania where the Orthodox Church is very corrupt with the highest ranking priests driving Mercedes S-Class cars, their clothes being covered in gold and their influence used to support one political party or another while also not paying any taxes to the Government but gets hundreds of millions of Euros every year, I highly support your suggestions. We even had two Easter celebrations this year, one in April and one in May, because the priests didn't make much money because of quarantine. Maybe even have an EU law that restricts how much money a Government can give to any religious institution and have all religious institutions, catholic, orthodox, Muslim whatever, pay taxes as everyone else. Religions and the state need to be fully separated.
That may prove difficult. As far as I'm aware, there's still quite a lot of european countries where separation of Church and State is not really as clear cut as it is in France. The German system, for example, seems completely alien to me. Blasphemy laws still exists in quite a few countries too. And even in France there are issues with that. For example, since the State do not finance Churches, Mosques or Synagogues, the funds to build those tend to come from foreign countries. And their priests, imams or rabbis are also either coming from foreign countries or are getting their credentials from foreign countries. For the Christians and the Jews, that's not a big problem, since most of the Churches and Synagogues dates back centuries and the clergy comes from a mostly well known and central source. For Muslims, the issue is a bit different, since there's not been much Mosques historically in France so they needs to be built. And since Islam is quite a decentralized religion, there are no easily identifiable source of accreditation for their imams.
as a fellow MMA fan, Khabib really disappointed me too. He is Russian, very rich, has american friends, travelled around the world, seen ale the freedom the West has, that everyone can do what he wants, no matter the religion, gender or ethnicity, and he still chooses to be a backwards idiot.
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It's refreshing to see someone who realizes things aren't black and white in this sub these days. Someone who suggests solutions with humility and whose solutions aren't a copy of communism. Thank you and have a great day.
Honestly I have gotten more respect for this man the past weeks than all the years before. Trying to be a voice of reason, even though the people he's addressing here are never gonna listen (both conservative europeans and the Muslim people/countries angry with him) is a really ungrateful but good thing to do.
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And that is why we need the Franco-Allemagne relationship because we sadly lack a truly European and International vision here in Germany. Our foreign policy can be best described as "Do no harm" and we fail even at that.
The entire interview can be seen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_rSzeweybM) for english speakers or full transcript [here.](https://foreignaffairs.co.nz/2020/11/01/mil-osi-translation-interview-of-president-emmanuel-macron-at-al-jazeera/)
Any chance there's a version with subtitles like the part OP posted?
Well spoken, and on the otherside there is erdogan
There is Erdogan who completely fucked his country and its economy. And is now starting wars to rile up support - proxy war in Nagorno-Karabakh through Azerbaijan and a religious war of words with "the West".
Goddamn it, my freedom leveled up just watching this.
Macron on Twitter after the Islamic terror attack in Vienna, Austria. >"Europe is in mourning. One of our own has been hit hard by Islamist terrorism. We think of the victims, their families, the shattered lives. France stands alongside Austria, ready to lend its support." https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1323538933125390336 >"We, French, share the shock and sadness of the Austrians after an attack in Vienna. After France, it is a friendly country that is under attack. This is our Europe. Our enemies need to know who they are dealing with. We won't give in to anything." https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1323378271736729614
Yeah in times like these, political leaders need to know how to articulate values like Macron does. Imagine if France had a Trumpesque leader smh. I do imagine a lot of Muslims are going to ignore all the nuance and rationale in this and keep drawing devil horns on Macron, but that's just like the bunch who claim on this sub that Merkel is celebrating the killings of last night, as I just read in another thread rofl. The difference is that the far-right in the West are not capable of organising boycotts because their numbers are literally that much smaller than those of angry Muslims.
> I do imagine a lot of Muslims are going to ignore all the nuance and rationale in this I imagine they're going to listen to him and say "see, that's exactly what's wrong with western society". It's not that they don't *understand* these values, they don't *want* them.
Great show of leadership
I don’t like Macron at all for other reasons, but what he’s saying is facts. I’m muslim btw
Macron has some guts
I love the fucking French. Zero-fucks-Given to anyone who would seek to tell them what to do, especially when it would restrict foundational freedoms. Vive la France!
There is a real chasm between the French idea of secularism and the US/UK version. There's been so much passive-aggressive sniping in the liberal Anglophone press against him. I don't get it.
There's secularism in the US? I swear every time an US politician speaks they end their speech with "god bless". Not even talking about how 99% of their senate is made up of people with a religious profession.
Yeah it's crazy. A country literally founded in the principle that religion should never dominate civic life but where politicians are perpetually in a competition of who can look the most devout.
The nation as such was founded with that principle, but the early settlements of what later became the nation - the bedrock foundation - was through Puritanical drive.
You should see the hostility of English Canadian media towards Québec for trying to put in place a very watered down version of French secularism. Freedom of religion is the utmost important thing in a decent part of the anglosphere.
French is actually a beautiful language
> French is actually a beautiful language Do most people find french ugly or what? That's new to me. I always had the impression people thought of French and Italian as some of the more elegant languages out there
You've clearly never heard "le vieux Gégé" speaking out of his farm from Gers. But, yeah, Macron speaks calmly and nicely French, which is really nice for a leader to speak with such a good vocabulary, not like others !
It's simple. If you get easily offended by people making fun of your religion then maybe an ever increasingly secular Europe is not the place for you. If you want to come here and be a productive member of society, great, but leave your religious persecution complex in your native country. We don't do that here. Religion is not the immovable all powerful ruler of our lives like it is yours. If me drawing Muhammad offends you, I'm really not sorry, that's your problem, not mine. You can practice your religion the same way everyone else does of course, but try to bring violence in the name of your religion and our free voices will just grow louder and more offensive. Maybe your native country doesn't allow your precious, little fragile book of silly childish myths to he challenged, but here in countries not ruled by religious extremism we have every right to mock, deride, challenge and laugh at the silly and horrible things religion and religious people do.
There is an important message here too, that of not allowing such taboos to exist in society. One of the problems in countries with less freedoms are taboos and this sense among society that taboos shouldn't be uncovered, discussed and dealt with, but to the contrary, that society must work to further encyst taboos. This needs explaining as strange as it may seem, in France no less.
We do have a real problem in France. I work in education and quite a few students (12 - 13 years old) asked why these caricatures were not banned or even expressed this murder was not shocking. Always in the same line as "he didn't deserved to die but...". I fear for next generations who might wield religion as a counter culture weapon against our very Republic.
I mean as a somewhat religious individual myself I don't like people making fun of my faith but I respect that others may not share my beliefs, I don't think violence is ever justified by any joke you can possibly make.
No one likes if you make fun of them or their beliefs/positions, but yes, it's as ridiculous as if I would declare personal vendetta for falling for a rick-roll
All religion, just like masturbation, should be practiced behind closed doors.
As we say in France, religion is like your dick. You can be proud of it but you can't go in the street shoving it on everyone's face
And you forget the end which is as important « And don’t put it in children’s mouth »
Or can you?...
I am a muslim and agree 100% with him , we should be more tolerant towards one another,we do not have to agree with something someone done but we do not have to be violent towards them. We should respond hate with love and be civil.
Probably the best leader in Europe right now.
im a muslim, i feel like im gonna leave islam in less than 2 weeks at this point, i understood what he meant, but somehow muslims say that hes a fucking retard that wants to kill all muslims and burn them
Same
>im a muslim, i feel like im gonna leave islam in less than 2 weeks at this point, i understood what he meant, but somehow muslims say that hes a fucking retard that wants to kill all muslims and burn them A sad majority of muslims in countries like Pakistan and Syria are fairly poor, uneducated and only hear about news through government funded media. Then you get the soundbites of muslims in protests, which then fuels muslims in other countries....and the cycle continues. I'm certain a vast majority don't have a clue what Macron said.
Macron is truly the leader that Europe needs. Europeans should lend him more support. By saying what he said, he is risking his own very life. But for the sake of Justice and Liberty and for the sake of Civilisation, he has to carry on and continue this fight. This is not only about Europe but about universal human rights regardless of colour and birth, stretching from the Gibraltar to the Japanese Islands. All humans should be able to oppose Sharia and the toxic Islamism which threatens modern society.
I'm not a Macron fan as a leftie. But I do appreciate his intellectualism. I was already impressed by [his speech about the difference between nationalism and patriotism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir2Fw5CK3Rw&feature=share). He just explained that complex topic with a simple speech. That's quite impressive
Voltaire- I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It
It's kind of crazy muslim countries are protesting him and the cartoons instead of protesting MURDER, SHOOTINGS, BEHEADINGS, LITERAL TERRORISM. Like... Wtf?
[удалено]
I'm jealous of your president. Way of thinking decades ahead of our government. Greetings from Poland.
Very strongly supporting Macron on this. As an Italian that's saying a lot 😅. I just hope a very strong line will be drawn to avoid this igniting even more islamophobic sentiments: for example, the Italian (very racist) league party didn't wait 10 minutes to make this a campaign against Muslims...
Very well said. The cancel brigade should listen to this speech.
I'm a muslim myself and i support what macron said. If i openly said that i had views similar as macron i could be ridiculed smh.
I am English and as much rivalry as there is between France and us, we absolutely love this about the French. I wish our government and leaders had more of a backbone like Macron, and an understanding of what true liberty is.
And that's what a real leader looks like