Actualités Françaises

Contrairement à ce que j'ai beaucoup entendu et vu sur les réseaux sociaux ces derniers jours, notre pays n'a de problème avec aucune religion. Elles s'y exercent toutes librement ! Pas de stigmatisation : la France est attachée à la paix et au vivre-ensemble.

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 31, 2020

Adam a écrit:

Contrairement à ce que j'ai beaucoup entendu et vu sur les réseaux sociaux ces derniers jours, notre pays n'a de problème avec aucune religion. Elles s'y exercent toutes librement ! Pas de stigmatisation : la France est attachée à la paix et au vivre-ensemble.

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 31, 2020

Khalid Hajji - Middle East Eye a écrit:

Macron's crusade against Islam is political extremism at its worst

Violence among Muslim youth is largely due to the fact that they cannot recognise themselves in the values of the country they live in, rather than because of religious fervour

Pondering the strained relations between France and Islam, my memory takes me back to the end of the 1980s, when I was a young student participating in a mass protest in Paris against the translation of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses into French.

I recall the posters and placards reading: “The Prophet is a red line.” But it was not until I heard author Yves Lacoste likening the matter to his student during a lecture to a “translation of the crisis into the French context” that I realised what was at stake. It was less a matter of freedom of expression and defence of the Islamic faith, than a matter of geostrategic reasoning and geopolitical interests.

I remain deeply indebted to Lacoste for alerting me, at an early stage of my career as a researcher into relations between Islam and the West, to the fact that geopolitics matter when it comes to understanding the troubled relationship between western artistic expression and the Islamic faith.

Geopolitical chessboard

The Satanic Verses would likely have gone unnoticed had it not been for drivers of a geostrategic nature. To many French thinkers and observers at the time, the frantic race to translate the book into French betrayed a geopolitical design to involve France in the conflict between Iran and the UK.

They believed the rallying cry for freedom of expression was merely an intelligent move on the geopolitical chessboard. France and other European countries stood with London in the posture of defending free expression, thus disrupting their own relations with Iran and sealing the fate of their shares in the market of its reconstruction.

It is a huge blunder to adopt a rhetoric that relates the acceptance of caricatures of the Prophet to religious moderation, or their condemnation to religious extremism

More than three decades have passed since the publication of Rushdie’s book, and yet France and Islam find themselves caught in the same old skirmish over the relationship between freedom of expression and respect of faith. French President Emmanuel Macron has gotten bogged down in an irreversible path of confrontation, not only with extremists and radicals, but with Muslims from various walks of life, both within and outside France.

In his management of the current crisis, Macron lacks clarity and discernment. He has lamentably failed to designate the right enemy. Consequently, he has not only incurred the wrath of his geostrategic rivals, such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but also estranged himself from his traditional allies in the fight against extremism.

Even before the horrific beheading of a French schoolteacher for showing his pupils caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Macron indulged in unsound, hasty generalisations by conflating France’s social ills, Islamic extremism and the “crisis” of Islam. His convoluted rhetoric aims to play, domestically, into the hands of right-wing extremism, with the next election in mind.

Treading a fine line

Macron has left the impression with his moderate Muslim allies, let alone among extremists, that he is not fit to tread the fine line between fighting political Islam and undermining the very tenets of the Islamic faith. It is a huge blunder to adopt rhetoric that relates the acceptance of caricatures of the Prophet to religious moderation, or their condemnation to religious extremism. The president’s attitude reeks of an unacceptable form of Manichaeism.

It is political extremism, indeed, to submit French citizens of Muslim origin to the choice between endorsing the display of caricatures of the Prophet on government walls, or cutting the ties that bind them to the values of the republic. Upon closer inspection, we realise that this type of political extremism, like Islamist extremism, falls back on a simplistic definition of right and wrong.



Nothing is more absurd and dangerous than resorting to political extremism to fight religious extremism. It is a narrow-minded oversimplification to ascribe responsibility for violence perpetrated by criminals of Muslim origin to a worldwide “crisis of Islam”.

My long experience of working with Muslim youth in Europe has shown me that violence among them is largely due to the fact that they cannot recognise themselves in the values of the countries where they live, rather than because of religious fervour. It is puzzling to see how the same youth who routinely curse God, rush to avenge the slander of the Prophet.

I have no doubt that unless these youth are accepted and given a sense of belonging, the amount of violence among them will not decrease. Religion is often only a demarcation line in their attempts to negotiate their sense of identity in today’s difficult European context.

Turbulent times

To address the challenge of living together in the French context, it is not helpful to point to the crisis of Islam in the broader world, glossing over the crisis of European identity in the post-Brexit era.

Undoubtedly, France is going through one of the most turbulent times in its history, unsure of its next moves. Ongoing economic, political and philosophical crises call for a redefinition of what it means to be French - but this highlights the risks of falling into the rhetorical trap of political radicalism.

It is certainly political radicalism to claim that the republic can define how to be Muslim. Nothing is as damaging to living together as this attempt to coerce the Islamic faith into the geography of the republic, amid the claim that Islam within the country is different from Islam abroad.



Such an orientation of thought is in several respects comparable to the "Clash of Civilisations" theory. In both cases, the solution is predicated on geographic separation: “Bad Muslims do not deserve to be here; they belong there.”

It would be wise to separate Islam from extremism. This is the only way to disempower the extremists who try to hijack the Islamic faith in their attempt to find a moral justification for their criminal deeds and terrorist acts. A criminal or a terrorist is not only the product of Islamic culture, but also of the French republic - of its schools, its migration policies and its social fabric.

It is unfair and erroneous to put Muslims on the spot over the question of “the values of the republic”. Those who are concerned about whether Muslims in France adhere to the values of the republic imply that Muslims are the only challenge to an existing consensus over “French values”.

In reality, French society, no less than other societies around the world, is torn between yesterday’s and today’s values, where the lines between “us” and “them” are blurred.  
Existential crisis

Ultimately, we can only hope that Macron’s inexpert communication with the Muslim world will not prompt overreactions that could distract Muslims from certain fundamental questions. France remains, in the perception of Muslim youth, a better place to live than many Islamic countries. This is why they risk their lives to reach its shores, fleeing their homes.

   Islam, unlike what some extremists want it to be, is not a system of ideals that thwarts synergy between Muslims and non-Muslims

It is incumbent upon French Muslims, and all European Muslims, to contribute to the consolidation of a culture of freedom, equal rights and the rule of law. Paradoxical as it might seem, the dignity of most people in the Muslim world depends upon the implementation of these values.  

The Islamic world faces a serious existential crisis, and only interactions with and an openness to the outside world can help to find solutions. Islam, unlike what some extremists want it to be, is not a system of ideals that thwarts synergy between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Citation :

Quand Emmanuel Macron se plaint auprès du New York Times de la couverture des attentats

Le quotidien américain publie un article relatant un appel téléphonique du Président français reçu jeudi dernier par l'un de ses journalistes. Emmanuel Macron voulait, expliquent-ils, se plaindre du traitement anglo-saxon des attentats qui ont visé la France ces dernières semaines et le journaliste en a fait un article

Emmanuel Macron, mécontent du traitement par les médias anglo-saxons des attentats qui ont secoué la France ces dernières semaines, aurait téléphoné à Ben Smith, le tout nouveau journaliste spécialiste des médias au New York Times. Et Ben Smith, qui n'a visiblement pas apprécié la démarche, ne s'est pas privé de faire un article de cette discussion.

L'article commence assez mal.

"Le président a quelques comptes à régler avec les médias américains", peut-on lire.
L'auteur relate la discussion avec le président français, qui l'aurait appelé pour ce que l'on pourrait décrire comme une mise au point.

Les Anglo-saxons ne comprennent pas la "laïcité à la française"
Principal reproche fait par Emmanuel Macron : les médias anglo saxons ne comprennent pas "la laïcité à la française". Emmanuel Macron n'aurait pas apprécié les commentaires après la mort de Samuel Paty. Selon lui, les médias américains ont surtout reproché à la France d'être raciste et islamophobe plutôt que de dénoncer les violences islamistes.

Ben Smith de son coté rappelle que lorsque l'enseignant a été tué, Emmanuel Macron a "répondu par la répression de musulmans accusés d’extrémisme" fermant des associations. Il estime que les Américains accordent de l'importance à la tolérance religieuse et à la liberté d'expression protégée par le premier amendement de la Constitution. À cela, Emmanuel Macron répond qu'il y a une forme d'incompréhension de ce qu'est le modèle européen, en particulier français.


Ben Smith analyse l'acte d'Emmanuel Macron comme une "obsession du racisme, nos points de vue sur le terrorisme, et notre réticence à exprimer notre solidarité, même un instant, avec sa République assiégée".

Selon le journaliste, le Président français Emmanuel Macron reproche aux médias anglo-américains de préférer dénoncer le système d’intégration français plutôt que ceux qui ont commis une série d’attaques meurtrières qui a débuté le 16 octobre avec la décapitation de Samuel Paty, un enseignant qui, lors d’un cours sur la liberté d’expression, avait montré à ses élèves des caricatures, parues dans le journal satirique Charlie Hebdo, qui moquaient le prophète Mahomet.


“Lorsque la France avait été attaquée il y a cinq ans, toutes les nations du monde nous avaient soutenus”, a dit Emmanuel Macron, en référence au 13 novembre 2015, lorsque 130 personnes ont été tuées lors d’attaques simultanées dans une salle de concert, un stade de football, et des cafés parisiens.

“Et quand je vois, dans ce contexte, de nombreux journaux, qui je pense viennent de pays qui partagent nos valeurs, qui écrivent dans un pays qui est l’enfant naturel des Lumières et de la Révolution Française, et qui légitiment ces violences, qui disent que le coeur du problème, c’est que la France est raciste et islamophobe, je dis : les fondamentaux sont perdus”.

Bref on comprend bien que le New York Times n'a pas trop apprécié le coup de fil présidentiel. Le journaliste américain conclut d'ailleurs en se demandant si les plaintes d’Emmanuel Macron à l'encontre des médias américains n'ont pas un coté trumpien.

Précisions de l’Élysée après le papier du New York Times, intitulé "Macron contre les medias" dans lequel le journaliste Ben Smith déclare que le président français "a quelques comptes à régler avec les médias américains" et qu'il l'a appelé jeudi après midi dernier pour " soumettre une plainte".

L'Elysée dément
L'Élysée précise que le journaliste américain était en contact depuis plusieurs jours avec l'équipe de communication du Président de la République au sujet de la rédaction de son article.

"C'est lui qui nous a sollicités", indique l'entourage d'Emmanuel Macron. Il n'y a pas eu de "coup de sang" du Président
Toujours selon l'équipe de communication présidentielle, Ben Smith souhaitait parler directement à Emmanuel Macron. L'échange téléphonique a été programmé à jeudi 20H. "Il a duré 10 minutes et a été courtois".

L'Elysée précise :

"Si c'est le palais qui a rappelé le journaliste américain à l'heure convenue, ce n'est que pour une question de forme : l'Elysée ne communique pas la ligne directe quand un rendez vous est fixé, c'est le secrétariat qui appelle l'interlocuteur."

https://www.franceinter.fr/monde/quand-emmanuel-macron-appelle-le-new-york-times-pour-se-plaindre-de-la-couverture-des-attentats?fbclid=IwAR1W3mZeiLrVyrrnV8TU0VIDw591PaGjbj7BVDglZoG72l8LfJxcSz87Jqw

Fahed64 a écrit:

Liberté d'expression ou hypocrisie française ?

Citation :

Quand Emmanuel Macron se plaint auprès du New York Times de la couverture des attentats

Le quotidien américain publie un article relatant un appel téléphonique du Président français reçu jeudi dernier par l'un de ses journalistes. Emmanuel Macron voulait, expliquent-ils, se plaindre du traitement anglo-saxon des attentats qui ont visé la France ces dernières semaines et le journaliste en a fait un article

Emmanuel Macron, mécontent du traitement par les médias anglo-saxons des attentats qui ont secoué la France ces dernières semaines, aurait téléphoné à Ben Smith, le tout nouveau journaliste spécialiste des médias au New York Times. Et Ben Smith, qui n'a visiblement pas apprécié la démarche, ne s'est pas privé de faire un article de cette discussion.

L'article commence assez mal.

"Le président a quelques comptes à régler avec les médias américains", peut-on lire.
L'auteur relate la discussion avec le président français, qui l'aurait appelé pour ce que l'on pourrait décrire comme une mise au point.

Les Anglo-saxons ne comprennent pas la "laïcité à la française"
Principal reproche fait par Emmanuel Macron : les médias anglo saxons ne comprennent pas "la laïcité à la française". Emmanuel Macron n'aurait pas apprécié les commentaires après la mort de Samuel Paty. Selon lui, les médias américains ont surtout reproché à la France d'être raciste et islamophobe plutôt que de dénoncer les violences islamistes.

Ben Smith de son coté rappelle que lorsque l'enseignant a été tué, Emmanuel Macron a "répondu par la répression de musulmans accusés d’extrémisme" fermant des associations. Il estime que les Américains accordent de l'importance à la tolérance religieuse et à la liberté d'expression protégée par le premier amendement de la Constitution. À cela, Emmanuel Macron répond qu'il y a une forme d'incompréhension de ce qu'est le modèle européen, en particulier français.


Ben Smith analyse l'acte d'Emmanuel Macron comme une "obsession du racisme, nos points de vue sur le terrorisme, et notre réticence à exprimer notre solidarité, même un instant, avec sa République assiégée".

Selon le journaliste, le Président français Emmanuel Macron reproche aux médias anglo-américains de préférer dénoncer le système d’intégration français plutôt que ceux qui ont commis une série d’attaques meurtrières qui a débuté le 16 octobre avec la décapitation de Samuel Paty, un enseignant qui, lors d’un cours sur la liberté d’expression, avait montré à ses élèves des caricatures, parues dans le journal satirique Charlie Hebdo, qui moquaient le prophète Mahomet.


“Lorsque la France avait été attaquée il y a cinq ans, toutes les nations du monde nous avaient soutenus”, a dit Emmanuel Macron, en référence au 13 novembre 2015, lorsque 130 personnes ont été tuées lors d’attaques simultanées dans une salle de concert, un stade de football, et des cafés parisiens.

“Et quand je vois, dans ce contexte, de nombreux journaux, qui je pense viennent de pays qui partagent nos valeurs, qui écrivent dans un pays qui est l’enfant naturel des Lumières et de la Révolution Française, et qui légitiment ces violences, qui disent que le coeur du problème, c’est que la France est raciste et islamophobe, je dis : les fondamentaux sont perdus”.

Bref on comprend bien que le New York Times n'a pas trop apprécié le coup de fil présidentiel. Le journaliste américain conclut d'ailleurs en se demandant si les plaintes d’Emmanuel Macron à l'encontre des médias américains n'ont pas un coté trumpien.

Précisions de l’Élysée après le papier du New York Times, intitulé "Macron contre les medias" dans lequel le journaliste Ben Smith déclare que le président français "a quelques comptes à régler avec les médias américains" et qu'il l'a appelé jeudi après midi dernier pour " soumettre une plainte".

L'Elysée dément
L'Élysée précise que le journaliste américain était en contact depuis plusieurs jours avec l'équipe de communication du Président de la République au sujet de la rédaction de son article.

"C'est lui qui nous a sollicités", indique l'entourage d'Emmanuel Macron. Il n'y a pas eu de "coup de sang" du Président
Toujours selon l'équipe de communication présidentielle, Ben Smith souhaitait parler directement à Emmanuel Macron. L'échange téléphonique a été programmé à jeudi 20H. "Il a duré 10 minutes et a été courtois".

L'Elysée précise :

"Si c'est le palais qui a rappelé le journaliste américain à l'heure convenue, ce n'est que pour une question de forme : l'Elysée ne communique pas la ligne directe quand un rendez vous est fixé, c'est le secrétariat qui appelle l'interlocuteur."

https://www.franceinter.fr/monde/quand-emmanuel-macron-appelle-le-new-york-times-pour-se-plaindre-de-la-couverture-des-attentats?fbclid=IwAR1W3mZeiLrVyrrnV8TU0VIDw591PaGjbj7BVDglZoG72l8LfJxcSz87Jqw

Citation :

La loi "Sécurité globale" : la France rappelée à l'ordre par l'ONU

Les rapporteurs aux Droits de l'Homme s'inquiètent pour le respect de plusieurs libertés fondamentales.
Le HuffPost

POLICE - C’est une invitation polie à revoir la copie. Alors que la loi “relative à la sécurité globale” doit être débattue ce mardi 17 novembre à l’Assemblée, le Haut Commissariat aux Droits de l’Homme de l’ONU a fait part de ses “sérieuses préoccupations” au sujet de ce texte controversé.

“Nous craignons que l’adoption et l’application de cette proposition de loi puissent entraîner des atteintes importantes aux droits de l’homme et aux libertés fondamentales”, affirment les rapporteurs, saisis notamment par la Ligue des droits de l’Homme, dans un communiqué publié lundi 16 novembre.

Cette proposition de loi, qui a fait l’objet de débats houleux en commission parlementaire, porte entre autres sur l’usage de nouveaux moyens technologiques par les forces de l’ordre et la restriction, dans certaines circonstances, de la diffusion d’images non anonymes des policiers et gendarmes.

Son article 24, notamment, propose de punir d’un an de prison et de 45.000 euros d’amende la diffusion, par tout moyen, de “l’image du visage ou tout autre élément d’identification” – à l’exception du numéro de matricule, dit “RIO” – d’un policier ou d’un gendarme en intervention, quand cette diffusion a pour but “qu’il soit porté atteinte à son intégrité physique ou psychique”.

Le droit à l’information menacé ?

Lundi, l’ONU a donc rappelé que “la publication d’images et d’enregistrements relatifs à des interventions de police sont non seulement essentiels pour le respect du droit à l’information, mais elles sont en outre légitimes dans le cadre du contrôle démocratique”.

Les rapporteurs regrettent aussi le manque de précision de l’atteinte à “l’intégrité physique ou psychique”, ce qui pourrait “décourager, voire sanctionner les vidéastes, journalistes ou citoyens.

L’absence de ces images “pourrait notamment empêcher que soient documentés d’éventuels abus d’usage excessif de la force par les forces de l’ordre”, ajoute le rapport.

L’ONU s’inquiète aussi d’atteintes au droit à la vie privée et à la liberté de réunion pacifique, en raison de l’élargissement de l’usage de la surveillance vidéo par des drones en manifestation, une “méthode particulièrement intrusive” et “susceptible d’avoir un effet dissuasif sur des individus qui se trouvent dans l’espace public et qui souhaiteraient participer à des réunions pacifiques”.

Dans un avis publié le 5 novembre, la Défenseure des droits Claire Hédon s’était inquiétée aussi des “risques considérables” sur la liberté d’informer que laisse présager cette proposition de loi.

De leur côté, les rapporteurs du projet de loi assurent qu’il s’agit simplement de réprimer les vidéastes aux intentions malveillantes et nullement de limiter la liberté d’action des journalistes. “Il n’est en aucun cas question d’empêcher les journalistes de travailler, ou de porter atteinte au droit d’information des citoyens”, a affirmé la députée LREM et co-rapporteure Alice Thourot dans une

https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/entry/loi-securite-globale-la-france-rappelee-a-lordre-par-lonu_fr_5fb2afc1c5b6aad41f71c930

Citation :

France: Le projet de loi contre le séparatisme risque de creuser de nouveau le fossé de l’exclusion

octobre 12, 2020

Le 2 Octobre 2020, dans un discours prononcé dans la ville des Mureaux, le président français a annoncé un ensemble de mesures qui devraient être prises dans le cadre d’un projet de loi contre le séparatisme islamiste, qui serait proposé le 9 Décembre prochain. Loin de s’intéresser aux problèmes de l’islamophobie, de l’exclusion sociale et la défense des minorités, les mesures annoncées par le président français Emmanuel Macron risquent de creuser le fossé de l’exclusion.

Si la lutte contre le terrorisme est importante, surtout à l’heure où s’ouvre le procès de l’attentat meurtrier de Charlie Hebdo qui nous espérons rapportera plus de lumière sur les coupables de cet attentat, il est aussi important que ces attentats ne soient pas un justificatif voire un moteur de mesures qui provoqueraient plus d’exclusions à l’encontre des minorités.

Notre alerte vient déjà de l’expression même de « séparatisme islamiste », aussi ambiguë que dangereuse qui, au lieu de rassembler sur un idéal à partager, elle pointe un problème avec des personnes de confession musulmane.

Notre alerte porte également sur les orientations de ce discours, à commencer par cette volonté exprimée de « bâtir un islam de lumière ». La volonté d’instaurer une gestion gallicane de l’islam de France et de contrôler ses manifestations publiques et privées constitue une atteinte manifeste à laïcité et sa loi principale adoptée un 9 Décembre de l’année 1905.

Au passage, nous nous étonnons que ce discours ne fasse aucune allusion au phénomène d’islamophobie, aux ampleurs grandissantes et visibles à tous les niveaux, venant parfois des structures mêmes de l’Etat français, qui provoque voire accentue le sentiment d’exclusion d’un bon nombre de citoyens de confession musulmane. Comment pourrions-nous faire ou laisser faire du séparatisme d’un côté et le combattre d’un autre ?

Nous rappelons les autorités françaises que la liberté de culte et de conscience est une liberté fondamentale garantie par la constitution, la loi de 1905 et au-delà par la convention européenne des droits de l’homme et les autres traités internationaux. La neutralité de l’état, de ses agents ou de ceux et celles qui assurent une mission de service public ne s’applique pas aux citoyens. Aussi, faut-il le rappeler, La cour Européenne des Droits de l’Homme précise que l’obligation de neutralité ne doit pas porter une atteinte disproportionnée à la liberté de conscience et de culte des agents publics.

https://afdinternational.org/fr/2020/10/12/france-le-projet-de-loi-contre-le-separatisme-risque-de-creuser-de-nouveau-le-fosse-de-lexclusion/

le360.ma a écrit:

SUICIDE DE DENIS FRANÇOIS, CONSUL GÉNÉRAL DE FRANCE À TANGER

Denis François, consul général de France à Tanger, s’est donné la mort dans la matinée de ce jeudi 19 novembre.

Nommé à ce poste le 15 septembre dernier, par décret du président Emmanuel Macron, Denis François a rejoint le consulat général de France début octobre. Ce matin, vers 7 heures, il s’est donné la mort, apprend Le360 de sources informées.

Selon les éléments dont nous disposons, le diplomate se serait pendu dans sa chambre.

Denis François a succédé à ce poste à Thierry Vallat. Jusqu’à sa récente nomination, il était conseiller au Quai d’Orsay, en poste à Paris.

MAP a écrit:

France : 62 policiers blessés et 81 personnes interpellées lors des manifestations contre une loi sécuritaire jugée “liberticide”

Foreign Policy a écrit:

Europe May Cheer Biden’s Win—But It Threatens Macron’s Grand Project

France is going to have a harder time selling “strategic autonomy” without the foil of the Trump administration to drive it.

In many European capitals, Joe Biden’s election victory has been welcomed with a sigh of relief after four years of trouble with President Donald Trump. But alongside the rejoicing over America’s promised return to multilateralism, Biden’s win is laying bare old and new rifts regarding Europe’s role on the world stage.

French officials in particular find themselves wondering to what extent Biden’s presidency will hamper their already difficult push for a more geopolitically independent EU, a pet project of President Emmanuel Macron in recent years, but one which seemed to draw power from Trump’s Europe-bashing and unilateral approach.

“Is the change in the American administration going to see Europeans letting up” on the effort to build greater strategic autonomy?, wondered Macron in a lengthy recent interview. Macron fleshed out his vision of a Europe that can hold its own in a world dominated by giants like the United States and China. While Macron called the United States “our historical allies,” he also stressed the cultural and geopolitical differences between the two sides of the Atlantic, and made clear that Europe should pursue strategic relevance “for itself” and “to prevent the Chinese-American duopoly.”

Concretely, he argued, this means further efforts to beef up European defense, while tackling technological dependence on the two superpowers when it comes to 5G networks and cloud data storage. He also urged action against Washington’s financial clout, which became apparent when U.S. financial sanctions threatened EU firms doing business with Iran after the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

Coming from Paris, none of this is particularly new. A stronger France via a stronger Europe has been a mantra of Macron’s for years—and has been part of France’s political DNA for decades. The Elysée’s attitude towards NATO, for instance, has been ambivalent since President Charles de Gaulle, who in 1966 withdrew French forces from the alliance’s command—a decision that would be fully reversed only 40 years later.

“If you look at how France has positioned itself in the West from de Gaulle onwards, it’s precisely this: ‘We are an ally of the United States, with which we have common values, but we are no vassals and we must be respected,’” said Christian Lequesne, a geopolitics and international relations professor at Sciences Po university.

The key question for Paris is whether, absent Trump as a foil, its European partners will still embrace the same attitude. In recent years, thanks to Trump’s trade wars, NATO-bashing, and political and economic fights over everything from Iran to climate change, Europe seemed ready to carve out a bigger independent role for itself. French and German officials, incensed by U.S. economic pressure, spoke openly of restoring “economic sovereignty.” In 2018, then-European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker entitled his State of the Union speech “The hour of European sovereignty.” Last spring, German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded “greater strategic sovereignty for the EU.”

Talk was cheap, though, and that’s clearest when it comes to defense. A European Defense Fund was set up to develop military technology and improve cooperation, but the resources allocated by the latest seven-year EU budget are 40 percent lower than the figure originally proposed by the Commission. The European Defense Agency says that aggregate spending in this area only got back to pre-financial crisis levels last year, with the share of research and technology in defense budgets still substantially lower than it was in 2007. And despite a military cooperation agreement signed in 2018, an integrated European army remains little more than a fantasy at this stage.

Those fault lines have become evident in recent weeks due to an unusually public argument between Macron and German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. In a POLITICO op-ed, she argued that “illusions of European strategic autonomy should come to an end: Europeans will not be able to replace America’s crucial role as a security provider.” Macron said later he “profoundly” disagreed with that view.

In some ways, the divisions look deeper than they really are. Last week, the French and German Foreign Ministers penned a joint column acknowledging that the transatlantic partnership must become “more balanced.” Especially in the wake of Trump’s decision to pull thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany, Berlin knows that Europe will have to accept more burden-sharing, as American resources are increasingly devoted to the confrontation with China.

The bigger difference is one of emphasis. Kramp-Karrenbauer insists that Europe needs to boost its military spending and take on some of the United States’ security tasks in its own neighborhood—but as a way to be taken more seriously by Washington and reinforce NATO and trans-Atlantic ties, not to supplant them.

Macron’s problem is that, even if he settled for the German approach, it’s not clear it would materialize. One minister’s point of view is not necessarily the position of the entire government, especially a cobbled-together coalition like the one that governs Germany, noted Hanns Maull of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Any continuity in Germany’s current approach is further clouded by Merkel’s planned departure from the Chancellery next year.

In that sense, this month’s Franco-German spat could be an attempt by Macron to keep up the pressure, noted Maull, given a general lack of trust in Berlin meeting its commitments on defense spending. While Germany’s defense budget has gone up in recent years, it remains below the nominal 2 percent of GDP threshold that NATO states are supposed to spend on defense. Germany is now estimated to be spending about 1.6 percent of its GDP on defense, compared with France’s 2.1 percent. And when it comes to expenditure in major equipment and related research and development as a share of the total, Germany’s is one of the lowest among NATO members. The German armed forces’ top brass has long been sounding the alarm about the poor state of the Bundeswehr, a situation that Maull described as a “mess.”

That, as much as Biden’s victory, is what makes it seem unlikely Macron will see any big breakthrough in his vision for a more muscular Europe. Further, other EU and NATO members, like Poland and (to a lesser extent) Hungary and the Baltic countries, are even less willing than Germany to pursue strategic independence from the United States.

“The French President is quite isolated,” said Lequesne, of Sciences Po. “Many EU states are still relatively eager to accept American hegemony, and that’s where Macron’s project is faltering.”

Politico.eu a écrit:

What Macron forgot about ‘Islamist separatism’

We’ve heard little from the French president about his promise to tackle social marginalization.

Emmanuel Macron got it right the first time.

In a speech last month, the French president promised a new law against what he called “Islamist separatism.” There must be, he said, stronger rules to defend France’s secular and democratic values and to stop radical Islamism from splitting France’s 5 million Muslims from the rest of the country.

That draft law, which has been leaked to the press, will be presented at the French Cabinet meeting on December 9. But what it won’t address is another problem Macron identified in his speech: the social marginalization of young Muslims. “We have created our own form of separatism,” Macron said in his speech at Les Mureaux west of Paris on October 2. “We have created districts where the promises of the Republic (ie liberty, fraternity, equality) are no longer kept.”

The president was talking about the 1,500 public housing estates in the inner suburbs of Paris and other French cities — often known generically as “les banlieues” — where the rate of youth unemployment can be up to 40 percent.

Since the banlieues riots of 2005, economic conditions in these places have worsened — especially so after the coronovirus epidemic destroyed or suspended many casual, low-paid jobs. Not all the inhabitants of such places are Muslims, but many of the 5 million French Muslims live in such places.

In his speech at Les Mureaux, Macron promised a plan of action this fall to bring “profound changes” to the inner suburbs — especially for younger Muslims. Without such action he said, the banlieues would remain a “fertile soil” in which extremist, Islamist propaganda would grow.

He also announced the creation of a new French “institute of Islam” to promote understanding in France of the Islamic world’s contributions to science, philosophy, art and literature.

Nothing much has been heard of either promise since.

‘Republican values’

Much blood, and many angry words, have been spilled since the Les Mureaux speech. Two weeks after Macron spoke, a history teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded close to his school in the western Paris suburbs. Paty had shown controversial cartoons of the prophet Mohammed to a civics class on freedom of expression and the secular French state. Less than two weeks after his murder, a young Tunisian migrant killed three people inside a church in Nice.

Macron’s promised draft law on “separatism” has generated enormous controversy on social media — largely based on willful misrepresentation.

To be sure, the proposed law “to strengthen Republican values” is clumsily worded in places. Parts of it may yet be struck out by France’s constitutional watchdog, the Constitutional Council. But the draft is certainly not the “attack on Islam” portrayed by some reporting in U.S. media and commentary online.

Home-schooling for children over 3 years old will be banned with some very targeted exceptions. The educational registration numbers already given to most children in France will be extended to those who go to unlicensed, private schools.

But the aim is not to restrict Muslim access to education as some inflammatory tweets suggested at the weekend. It is to make sure Muslim girls and boys aren’t vanishing from the system into schools which preach an extremist version of Islam.

In addition to these measures, religious or other associations that receive public subsidies would have to sign a charter on respect for “Republican values.” The charter is being drawn up by the main French Muslim umbrella group, representing nine organizations. It will state, inter alia, that Islam is a “religion, not a political movement.”

Separately from the new law, Macron has also asked French Muslim leaders to agree to incentives and guidelines for the training and nationwide recognition of French imams. There are 2,500 mosques or Muslim prayer rooms in France but only 800 imams recognized by the main Muslim associations — 300 of them foreign, some unable to speak French.

These proposals were drawn up in consultation with “moderate” or “mainstream” imams and other Muslim leaders and intellectuals. (There is, of course, no easy definition of what is moderate or mainstream, because there is no universally accepted structure for Islam in France. This is part of the problem which Macron seeks to address.)
‘Equality of opportunity’

The draft law is necessary. There have been 30 serious Islamist terror attacks in France in eight years. France has five million people of Muslim faith or from Muslim backgrounds — more, proportionally, than any other EU country. A growing number of younger Muslims say that they view France’s laws and secular principles as inferior and contrary to the laws of Islam.

But a majority of French Muslims — two-thirds — are non-practicing or rarely practicing. More than 70 percent see no threat to their religious freedom from the French secular state.

In other words, Macron is trying to create new rules to defend France’s secular and democratic values — but also to defend the right of the great majority of French Muslims to live and worship free from foreign-subsidized radical propaganda.

And yet, on its own — and by Macron’s own admission — the proposed new law is lame and incomplete. As he recognized in his speech last month, France needs to do more to make its Muslim citizens feel fully part of France. Radical propaganda and social marginalization were twin problems, he said, which must be “tackled in parallel …over years and years.”

He promised new efforts on “equality of opportunity” and to combat discrimination in the jobs and housing markets. He pledged that “part of French youth would no longer be treated as an expendable commodity.”

But while we have seen the proposals combatting radical Islam, what of the promises on equality of opportunity and the struggles of the multi-racial banlieues?

At the request of 100 disadvantaged suburban towns, the French government pledged this week that €1 billion of France’s €100-billion, two-year, post-epidemic “relaunch” program would be “ring-fenced” for them. This is not, however, a special effort or the promised long-term plan. It is money which, pro rata, the struggling suburbs could have expected in any case.

What of Macron’s “profound changes” in France’s approach to housing, jobs and les banlieues? Be patient. They are coming, French officials say. That’s not what Macron promised in his Les Mureaux speech.

He said poverty and marginalization do not explain or justify violent extremism but they are inextricably linked and must be tackled together. He said that extremism and the soil in which it grows must be “addressed in parallel …over years and years.”

He was right on all these counts. Macron should reread his own speech. Were he to forget, or indefinitely postpone, his promises to Muslim France, it would be making a terrible blunder.

The Intercept a écrit:

France’s Macron Is Ramping Up a Clash of Civilizations — but Will It Stop Terrorism?

With France on edge owing to a slew of terror attacks, Macron has arguably fanned, rather than quelled, the flames of unrest.

In recent years, French President Emmanuel Macron was best known internationally for being the target of bright yellow-vested protesters, thousands of whom took to the streets for months to vent anger at domestic misgovernance. Lately, though, Macron has become more famous for something else: taking up the banner of the clash of civilizations.

With France on edge owing to a slew of terror attacks, most recently a pair of gruesome killings within a few days of each other in mid-October, Macron has arguably fanned, rather than quelled, the flames of unrest. His highly touted response to the growing tensions in France over its Muslim population — the largest in Europe — and the terror threat seems less about directly stopping terrorist attacks than turning a security issue into a culture war, as well as galvanizing support for France’s growing geopolitical rivalry with Turkey.

“There are human rights issues and an issue of racism in France, and at the same time there is a terrorist threat in France. We can’t oppose one to the other,” said Marwan Muhammad, the former director of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, a civil rights organization focused on discrimination against French Muslims. “The government has been consistently failing to address the terrorist threat from the standpoint of security and criminality. When they fail on that front, they need to find a political scapegoat. For them, that would be the Muslim community.”

Macron’s decision to make fighting Islamism and reviving the glory days of European empire has been popular with some Europeans looking for assertive leadership. But it risks doing something else: turning a manageable domestic security problem with terrorism that France faces into an unwieldy, grand project. It’s unclear that Macron can actually carry out his mission successfully — which may very well do more harm than good.

The latest turn began in mid-October, not long after Macron’s high-profile sojourn to France’s former Lebanese protectorate. After returning, Macron delivered a provocative speech about the crisis of Islam that quickly went viral around the world. In short order, events seemed to conspire to underline his point. All of Europe, not just France, was jarred by the beheading of a history teacher, Samuel Paty, by an 18-year-old Chechen refugee angered over rumors that Paty had displayed disparaging images of the Prophet Mohammed to his class. Days later, an extremist went on a stabbing rampage in the southern city of Nice, killing three people in a church.

In the wake of national tragedy, a level of sympathy and solidarity should be expected. But following the attacks, the global response very quickly moved to criticizing France. This was at least in part due to disastrous public relations by the French government, which responded to the attacks by projecting the cartoons on public buildings, arresting four 10-year-old children, and launching an indiscriminate crackdown on French Muslim political organizations that had nothing to do with the killings. Protests and calls to boycott French products spread around the world, while the initial context of the killings was drowned out in a tidal wave of anger and mutual incomprehension.

Within a few weeks Macron himself was calling up the New York Times to complain about perceived bias in American news coverage, claiming that an alleged over-focus on racism in French society by the media was “legitimizing” violence. An article on the Financial Times website that had irked Macron was pulled down after he submitted a letter of complaint, while a similar article about French secularism in Politico was terminated after editors post-facto decided it didn’t meet editorial standards.

The irony of Macron’s campaign to suppress speech critical of his government has not escaped notice. “Racism and double standards cannot be challenged by caving in to those who wish to restrict speech or the right to blaspheme,” wrote Guardian columnist Kenan Malik in a pointed piece remarking on Macron’s ironic censorship campaign. “Nor can free speech be bolstered, or terrorism contained, by ignoring double standards, racist bigotry and the illiberalism of much of Macron’s policies.”

The debate was in line with a growing international discourse about free speech and integration, but it failed to address the root problems that gave rise to terrorism in France.

Few would argue that France doesn’t face a serious terrorist threat. Since 2015, hundreds of French citizens, including many French Muslims, have been killed in extremist attacks linked to groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Macron’s reaction, seemingly assigning collective blame for the atrocities, has suggested that France’s sloganeering about liberty would not extend to its Muslim population, including the vast majority who have been equally horrified by the attacks as the rest of their compatriots.

A more targeted approach focusing on problems in France — treating it as an organized crime problem rather than a sectarian conflict with half the planet and the global media — would yield more obvious results.

Take France’s Fiche S, or “S File,” security watchlist. The French government has thousands of individuals categorized as Fiche S, which tracks extremists, including many alleged Islamic radicals. Many people have found themselves on this list for spurious reasons and had their lives disrupted as a result.

These injustices aside, the list also fails from a security standpoint: The criteria for inclusion on such lists is often so broad that it becomes ineffective as a tool for finding actual terrorists. Rather than finding individuals prone to violence, particularly people with criminal histories like French terrorists often have, the government approach has inclined toward viewing piety as a precursor to violence.

“There are too many false positives in part because the government idea of radicalization is too extensive,” said Muhammad, of the Collective Against Islamophobia. “If having a beard or attending prayers is considered a sign of radicalization, resources are going to be wasted surveilling a lot of ordinary Muslims while missing a lot of gangsters and criminals.”

Then there is the fiery rhetoric. In addition to Macron’s own recent statements, some of which he has sought to clarify or backtrack from, his voluble Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has generated alarm about what is actually happening in France. Not long ago, Darmanin was best known for facing serious for sexual assault allegations. Now he has become better known for his provocative comments about French Muslims. He has expressed shock over seeing religiously certified food stocked in grocery stores and mainstreamed far-right terminology to describe sections of society as descending into savagery. The interior minister has also stated that the government has been carrying out raids on individuals and groups unrelated to the attacks to “send a message.”

This sort of indiscriminate tough talk may resonate with the ideological far-right and even some ordinary people reeling in the aftermath of collective trauma, but it’s also contributed to the same global media backlash that has so irritated Macron. In the white-hot atmosphere following the attacks, his own disastrous government messaging encouraged even more extreme rumors about the country. A proposal to extend ID numbers to all French school children as a means of tracking attendance was misinterpreted internationally as a plan to spy on French Muslim children, an unhelpful misconception shared by social media users that quickly spread around the world.

“The whole affair was interpreted as: The French Government is going to assign an ID number to Muslim students to track them — which is absolutely untrue,” said Rim-Sarah Alouane, a French legal scholar and Ph.D. candidate in comparative law at University Toulouse 1 Capitole. “On a legal level this would never pass. Data on religion, race or ethnicity in France are strictly illegal, with some very regulated exceptions for academic research. But the horrific comments from the government regarding French Muslims, and the ensuing debates, led to this unfortunate confusion.”

Several actions already taken by the French government have been extreme enough without the need for embellishment. In recent weeks, the government moved to liquidate many French Muslim civil society organizations and charities, including the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, an effectively secular political group created to fight discrimination. In response to government threats, the collective announced that it had relocated its operations out of the country.

At the same time, the government began taking steps to create a state-approved French Muslim civil society under its control. Given Macron’s apparent sensitivity to criticism, it’s unlikely that these new organizations will be empowered to provide substantive feedback to government policy like the Collective Against Islamophobia and others have done.

Macron has become a stereotypically polarizing figure across Europe and around the world. On one hand, he’s been demonized as a racist chauvinist at war with a helpless minority. On the other, he is being celebrated as a warrior against political correctness, unafraid to call out the real problems in society and who is allegedly causing them — in this case, poorly integrated French Muslims and their “Islamic separatism.” Amid all this, Macron has also been in the news almost constantly with abortive plans to reconstitute the French empire in the Middle East and revive the era of great European civilization.

As is often the case, the more you narrow the aperture, the more complex things start to appear. While Macron is clearly interested in taking strong positions on the great issues of world history, there are also the more prosaic, perhaps boring, questions of administering the economic, political, and security needs of the country. On those counts, Macron has appeared less inspiring.

Before he rebranded as a global warrior of the Enlightenment against religious obscurantism, Macron’s biggest problem was dealing with a long-running protest movement triggered by a proposal to raise gas taxes. Even before the recent terrorist attacks — which, at the end of the day, his security agencies failed to prevent — Macron’s pivot to culture war over Islam seemed curiously timed for a country reeling from a public health and economic crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

When the French government proposed a new security law that would restrict the filming of police officers, people poured into the streets. In the wake of this outrage, Macron appears to be walking back the effort. On his efforts to shutter nongovernmental Muslim groups and legislate official ones, though, Macron is pressing forward with his plan — and an uprising does not seem to be in the offing. That the two would-be related efforts are linked but garner drastically different responses is not lost on everyone. And few see any hope for dealing with the security situation through a civil society crackdown on French Muslims or a grand project of religious reformation.

Macron is now pushing ahead with what he calls a “draft law to strengthen republican values,” following a global outcry over his comments about Islamic separatism. Some of the measures aim at outlawing common cultural practices among some conservative Muslims that are generally unpopular in France. Experts, though, say that such measures focusing on culture over security are unlikely to stop attacks like the ones that hit the country this fall.

“It baffles me that right now almost no one is talking about what the intelligence services were doing before this attack and why they didn’t catch the assailant beforehand,” said Francesco Ragazzi, an expert on counterterrorism and associate professor in international relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands, commenting on the terrorist attacks and the government response. “We still need to see what kind of law comes out of the parliamentary process in the end, but my sense is that the new measures are unlikely to prevent terrorism.”

https://ledesk.ma/encontinu/emmanuel-macron-positif-au-covid-19/ a écrit:

David Hearst - Middle East Eye a écrit:

Emmanuel Macron's cynical crusade

The French president is launching nothing less ambitious than a secular crusade. Not to save Jerusalem, but to save France’s imaginary republican soul.

For four years, French prosecutors strained every sinew to prove that a multinational jihadist conspiracy was behind the attacks on the newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

A total of 17 were killed in gun attacks that spread across three days and stunned the nation. This was France’s biggest terrorist trial and yet, despite its importance, the fact that the attack on a newspaper led to a second and the likelihood that it will lead to yet more, the convictions last week left basic questions unanswered.

Prosecutors struggled to establish terrorist links in the so-called "Belgo-Ardennes" group, beyond those of a loose band of petty criminals. Hayat Boumeddiene, the former partner of Amedy Coulibaly who stormed the Hyper Cacher supermarket, was found guilty in absentia of financing terrorism. Mohammed and Mehdi Belhoucine, who were thought to have died fighting with the Islamic State group (IS) in Syria, were convicted of complicity in the attacks.

Three others were found guilty of "association with terrorist criminals". The remaining seven were convicted of "associating with criminals”. They came across in court as petty criminals.

The prosecutors failed to prove they knew of the plot. All were charged with involvement in networks that led to Coulibaly. But what was their connection with Said and Cherif Kouachi, the gunmen who attacked Charlie Hebdo?

Who from the Islamic State group ordered the attacks? How did the Kouachis get their weapons? Who armed them?

Even allowing for their role in picking holes in the charge sheet, defence lawyers were unusually contemptuous of the evidence. They called the indictment by the National Antiterrorism Prosector’s office (PNAT) "surreal", "shameful", "empty", "a cobbled together tissue of suppositions, conjecture and guesswork".

Margo Publiese, the lawyer representing Miguel Martinez, summed up the view of her colleagues. "This case has driven everyone crazy. It oozes fear and unreason. Something irrational has overcome PNAT, the investigating judge, and the investigators," she told the court. "The chain of command in the case was terrorised. When it becomes too frightened, justice itself suffers. I did not know that fear could do that to judges."
'Homemade terrorists'

This was much as Oliver Roy, one of France’s leading scholars on radical Islam, had predicted in his recent interview with MEE. Roy is an unusual man in France today. He prefers evidence to conspiracy theories about an Islamist plot to take over France. In his analysis of attacks carried out by three different generations of assailants, Roy finds differences between terrorist campaigns post-1995 which he thinks are significant.

Unlike the bombing of a synagogue in Paris in 1980, or of the Jewish restaurant in the Marais in 1982, today’s attacks are the work of "homemade terrorists", loners who have systematically chosen to die.

They are untrained. They find their own weapons, make their own plans and carry out their own intelligence. They kill indiscriminately. They target the public at large. Their aim is ritual sacrifice with bloodied knife in hand, rather than to kill as many innocents as possible. There is no evidence they are getting instructions from the Islamic State group, let alone direction from abroad.

They generally do not have a mosque, an imam, nor a support network behind them. Crucially, their ideological path is not - as the government, prosecutors and counter-terrorist police and media all now assume - from Salafism to terrorism.

Roy has taken the mainstream understanding of radical Islam and stood it on its head. It is not Islam that radicalises, he argues, but radicalism, usually of second generation immigrants, that has found in Islam a new form. The difference is crucial. Roy told MEE: "It is not a question of first embracing Salafism and then moving on to terrorism. This is why I talk about the Islamisation of radicalism... The break with society comes first, possibly followed by an immersion in Salafism but, in many cases, radicalisation is not preceded by a Salafist phase at all.”

If Roy is right, nothing the French government is currently doing will work. Particularly after the latest killing of Samuel Paty, a school teacher who showed cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed to his class.

Secular crusade

The truth is of scant concern to Emmanuel Macron, the French president, who believes he has stumbled on a get-out-of-jail card with these murders.

Like other Western societies, France has problems maintaining social order, unconnected with religious extremism. The social ladder has broken. There are more barriers between generations, income groups, ethnic minorities, rural and urban populations, than at any time since the Second World War. The EU has long since lost relevance as a redemptive balm for three Franco-German wars. The left is shattered. The extreme right is modernising, changing form and shape.

And Macron himself, once the wunderkind of the political scene, has no answers to shrinking ratings and the prospect of having a battle on his hands to get through the first round of presidential elections in 2022.

So the charge against Macron is not so much that he is following in the footsteps of two men whose spectacular failure in the Middle East resounds to this day, Tony Blair and George Bush (though at the time the French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin got Iraq right and refused to take any part in the invasion). It is that Macron seeks personal political advantage in the brutal murders at Charlie Hebdo and the teacher Samuel Paty.

So what Macron has done is to launch nothing less ambitious than a secular crusade. Not to save Jerusalem, but to save France’s imaginary republican soul. Macron is doing this in the name of "laicite", a peculiarly French concept of separation of church and state that has been twisted by time out of all recognition.

A neoliberal weapon

When it was first introduced in 1905, laicite was a liberal measure. It was used to reduce the exclusivity of the Catholic Church. By withdrawing state funding from all religious faiths, it placed all religions in France on the same footing. The Catholic Church no longer enjoyed primacy.

Today, laicite is being used for a purpose, which is the polar opposite of that original intent: to re-establish the exclusivity of one set of beliefs over another for all the population regardless of ethnicity or origin.

It has become the neoliberal weapon of choice against tolerance, multiculturalism, and co-existence. It is the tool by which right (and left) seek to patch up the ever fraying identity of what it is to be a citizen of France.

Islam amply occupies enemy territory. In Macron’s eyes, socially conservative, anti-feminist, rejectionist, the practitioner of medieval forms of justice, an unfathomable pool of "otherness". Islam, unreformed, threatens the French republic. If Christianity had its reformation, Islam will have one too, or so Macron fondly imagines. So in Macron’s feverishly active hands laicite has turned into a 21st century crusade, with all the nuance Simon de Montfort showed in the 13th.

Cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have been emblazoned on the side of buildings. Scores of mosques have been raided. The Muslim Charity BarakaCity and the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) which monitors Islamophobic attacks have been closed down in the campaign against "Muslim separatism”.

The feud with the hijab has taken centre stage once more, when a member of Macron’s party walked out of a National Assembly hearing in the presence of a veiled student.

The 'French' Islam

And now imams are to be issued with official accreditation, which can be withdrawn. Further restrictions are to be placed about wearing the hijab. Home schooling is being banned. An official registry of Muslim imams is being built.

Imams will have to sign a charter of "republican values" with at least two central demands - an abnegation of political Islam and all "foreign interference". In the headlong rush to create a French Islam, all groups are being herded together, all distinctions elided: radical Islam; political Islam, anyone who is religiously observant whether they are liberal or not; first, second, third-generation immigrant.

All now are now placed in the same virtual internment camp.

This reaction alone will ensure that France remains a fertile target for Islamic State group or any of its mutations for decades to come. A "French Islam" is being created targeting "Islamist separation". For the first time, anyone who identifies him or herself as a Muslim faces a loyalty test "being with the Republic or not being with the Republic."

This is, of course, arrant nonsense.

At the precise point in history where the West, a group of nations aspiring to control world markets, the reserve currency, arms sales and armies, is in terminal decline, it is no accident that Muslims in Frances are being forced to sign a charter no other citizen would understand, let alone police.

Would Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, have dared to make comments about separate aisles for halal and kosher food in the wake of the attack on the Jewish supermarket four years ago? "When Macron came to power in France, his priority was fighting domestic violence. He has done nothing against domestic violence and now he is trying to stigmatise Muslims over polygamy. Although there are few polygamous men," a French Muslim woman told Channel Four.

"Marlene Schiappa (a government minister) then said it was okay to be unfaithful or to have a three-way relationship. I don’t know how to translate that in English, so it's okay to be polyamorous," she added.

Smiles from Abu Dhabi

Macron is not in isolation. Over two borders, Austria is doing the same thing. Last month hundreds of Austrian security police have swooped on addresses in Vienna in response to an attack that left four dead and 20 injured.

Austria’s interior minister, Karl Nehammer, however went out of his way to deny that the dawn raids had anything to do with the attack in Vienna. He said they targeted homes and offices linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Interestingly one month before this happened, Austria passed a law allowing the descendants of Austrian Jews who were forced to flee the country in the late 1930s to reclaim their Austrian citizenship. This happens to include me and my sister, as our parents had to flee Vienna then.

Now the same state is casting a shadow of suspicion on its much smaller Muslim immigrant population. Do I want to become a citizen of a country that keeps on turning on its ethnic minorities in times of stress?

All the while, a large grin is growing on the faces of those in the Gulf ’s most repressive states who are quietly encouraging all this to happen, and in some cases, funding it directly.

The Saudis and Emirates can not believe their luck. Donald Trump is just about to leave stage right, when along comes Macron entering state left. Both the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars and the UAE Fatwa Council immediately issued new rulings which said that the Muslim Brotherhood "does not have any link to Islam. It is a stray group".

Neither repressive state has any interest in religious freedom or in the separation of church and state. Quite the contrary. They are abusing religious authorities to give legitimacy to their autocracy. Their sole interest is in maintaining control. And they are using the religious authorities in both lands to do that. That is "political Islam" too. But Macron is not interested either in the quality of life in France for Muslims, nor in promoting democracy in the Middle East.

He has just awarded Abdel Fattah el Sisi, the Egyptian dictator who killed more unarmed citizens at Raba’a Square than the Chinese authorities did at Tiananmen Square, and who has locked up 60,000 political prisoners, the Grand Croix of the Legion d’honneur. Like Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Macron is interested in power.

He is well placed to stand alongside them. He has truly joined their club. This is how low the French presidency has sunk.

Citation :

   ANTE

Coronavirus à Lille : L’Institut Pasteur estime avoir trouvé un médicament efficace contre le Covid-19

MIS À JOUR LE 29/09/20 À 15H09

Gilles Durand

Des chercheurs de l’Institut Pasteur de Lille estiment avoir trouvé un médicament déjà sur le marché et efficace contre le Covid-19 parmi les 2.000 testés depuis cinq mois

Des chercheurs de l’Institut Pasteur de Lille ont confirmé à 20 Minutes avoir trouvé une molécule efficace pour un traitement contre le Covid-19.Ce médicament, dont le nom reste secret, a subi des tests in vitro très poussés depuis le mois de juin.Il reste à débloquer 5 millions pour pouvoir mener les derniers essais cliniques.

Le médicament tant attendu ? Des chercheurs de l’institut Pasteur de Lille ont confirmé, ce mardi, à 20 Minutes, avoir trouvé une molécule efficace contre le Covid-19. « Reste à mener un essai clinique pour valider définitivement l’activité antivirale de cette molécule », souligne un membre de l’équipe de recherche.

Selon lui, cette dernière ligne droite peut aller assez vite. « Nous avons besoin de plusieurs centaines de patients pour ces essais », assure-t-il. Mais pour l’instant, c’est l’absence de financement qui constitue un frein. Selon nos informations, il manque cinq millions d’euros et une demande d’aides a été formulée auprès de l’Etat qui « pour l’instant, n’a pas manifesté beaucoup d’intérêt ».

« L’hydroxychloroquine n’a pas résisté sur des modèles complexes »

Car voilà quelques jours que Pasteur a terminé tous ses tests in vitro. « Plusieurs molécules avaient été identifiées fin mai, mais il fallait les expérimenter sur des modèles de plus en plus précis pour connaître leur véritable efficacité sur l’homme », confie le chercheur. Ainsi, l’équipe de recherche est allée jusqu’à reconstituer un poumon artificiel.

Une seule molécule a montré son efficience jusqu’au bout. Et ce n’est pas l’hydroxychloroquine. « Cette molécule est effectivement ressortie positive lors des premiers criblages, mais elle n’a pas résisté sur des modèles plus complexes, ce qui montre les limites de son efficacité clinique », poursuit-il.

Quel est donc ce médicament miracle? Pour l’instant, son nom reste secret. « On veut éviter le marché parallèle et la maîtrise des stocks car c’est un médicament qui existe sur un petit marché actuellement ».

Un test sur environ 2.000 molécules

D’après les chercheurs, « le recul sur ce produit est suffisant pour savoir qu’il peut se montrer efficace avec la posologie normale administrée, aussi bien chez l’enfant que chez l’adulte. Et les alertes concernant les effets secondaires sont rares ».

La stratégie de Pasteur, en collaboration avec les laboratoires d’Apteeus, spécialisés dans le repositionnement des médicaments, semble donc avoir payé. Ce projet de recherche consistait à tester environ 2.000 molécules pour trouver celles qui pourraient éventuellement servir de traitement, en attendant un éventuel vaccin.

Interrogé en mai par 20 Minutes, le chercheur en virologie, Jean Dubuisson, avait déjà montré son optimisme à trouver assez rapidement une molécule capable d’empêcher les symptômes du Covid-19

     

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