Americans who value freedom should stand with France. We should offer solidarity along the lines of Le Monde’s famous “We are all Americans” headline on Sept. 12, 2001. We should embrace “Nous sommes tous Francais,” or “We are all French,” for two reasons in particular.
First, due to the latest terrorist atrocities to affect the Fifth Republic. On Thursday, a jihadist murdered three worshipers at a Catholic Church in the southern city of Nice. Another suspected jihadist was shot dead by police after confronting them with a knife. Next, there’s the rising political pressure on France from across the Islamic world. This second point is the most pertinent in terms of American support.
Infuriated by President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to stand resolutely in defense of his nation’s secular identity and respect for free speech, Islamic governments led by Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan are attempting to effect a mass boycott of French exports. Notably, however, these governments are less concerned with what precipitated Macron’s action in the first place — namely, the brutal mid-October decapitation-assassination of a French teacher, Samuel Paty. Paty was murdered by a jihadist who was enraged that the teacher had shown his class the Charlie Hebdo Prophet Muhammad cartoon. This foul atrocity against an innocent man and his students was designed to enforce a culture of fear on a nation proudly known for just the opposite. It deserved and demanded the unequivocal riposte that Macron has given. More than that, it invited the amusing Charlie Hebdo cover, this week, showing Erdogan in a rather unflattering light.
The point, here, is not the interchange of insults with comedy, however. What’s at stake is the right of teachers to educate their classes on matters of political speech, and of magazines to publish whatever they wish. It is about the right of the French people to set their own laws, free of external or internal intimidation, and to do so without hesitation. Put another way, it’s about the right of the French to be French. Erdogan cares nothing for such an instrumental ideal.
A profoundly delusional leader who sees himself as some kind of neo-Ottoman sultan, Erdogan sees morality only in the mirror. As with his reaction to the latest Charlie Hebdo cartoon, the Turkish president has fortified himself in a palace of rage. Anyone who questions him, whether via cartoons or via the practice of international law in the Eastern Mediterranean or the pursuit of peace in central Asia, is liable to meet his rage. They will be held, the Turkish government says, to legal and diplomatic consequences. Erdogan is almost certain to use the attack in Nice as a prop to suggest that France is reaping a somewhat-deserved whirlwind.
The inability of the Turkish government to corral French courts, notwithstanding, Erdogan’s effort to collectivize the Islamic world in his cause is of concern. France’s economy is reliant on its lucrative, high-value goods export market. Were enough nations to boycott those goods, or otherwise prevent their sale, the impact on the French economy might be significant, especially in rural areas that are dependent on scaled-up and sustained exports.
Fortunately, there are ways to make the pain of this boycott much greater than its prospective gain. The Turkish lira is again plummeting from its already pathetic perch, expectant of new U.S. sanctions over the S-400 saga, and of possible European sanctions over Turkey’s conduct in the Mediterranean. The United States should thus make clear that it opposes any boycotts, supports France’s right to self-governance, and will take punitive trade action against nations that enforce a legal boycott. We often hear that the U.S.-European relationship is in terminal decline. This is an opportunity to show that where it matters, the defense of sacred free values, the U.S. and EU stand shoulder to shoulder.
