Emmanuel Macron accused U.S. and other English-language media outlets of bias against France in portraying the country as Islamaphobic and “legitimizing” recent violence.
“When France was attacked five years ago, every nation in the world supported us,” the French president said in an interview with the New York Times, referring to the Charlie Hebdo shooting in 2015.
“So when I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values, journalists who write in a country that is the heir to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, when I see them legitimizing this violence and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost,” he said.
The interview came after a teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded outside of his school after showing his class a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
The New York Times said in its report that France has seen the most fatal terrorist attacks of any Western nation since 2015, with 250 people dead.
“Macron responded with a crackdown on Muslims accused of extremism, carrying out dozens of raids and vowing to shut down aid groups,” the New York Times reported. “He also made a vocal recommitment to secularism. Muslim leaders around the world criticized Mr. Macron’s and his aides’ aggressive response, which they said focused on peaceful Muslim groups. The president of Turkey called for boycotts of French products, as varied as cheese and cosmetics. The next month saw a new wave of attacks, including three murders in a Nice church and an explosion at a French ceremony in Saudi Arabia.”
