TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
'Resist the blackmail': French companies brace for Arab boycott
Boycotts of French goods are under way in supermarkets in Qatar and Kuwait, with further calls to spurn French products in Jordan and other states.
Change Size
A picture shows supermarket shelves empty of French products in Kuwait City on Friday, in protest of cartoons depicting Islam's Prophet Mohamed published in the French media. France will not give up cartoons, President Emmanuel Macron vowed this week in a homage to teacher Samuel Paty, beheaded for having shown caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed to pupils in a lesson on free speech. Paty became the subject of an online hate campaign after he showed cartoons of the Prophet to pupils in a civics class to elicit debate on freedom of expression.
(AFP/Yasser Al Zayyat)
F
rance's largest employers' federation on Monday urged companies to "resist the blackmail" over a product boycott by Arab countries as a backlash widens over Paris's hardened stance against radical Islam.
French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to take the fight to Islamic radicals after the Oct.16 beheading of a history teacher who had shown cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to pupils in a class discussion on free speech.
But his comments triggered protests in Muslim-majority countries at the weekend, with people burning pictures of Macron in Syria and setting fire to French flags in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
Boycotts of French goods are under way in supermarkets in Qatar and Kuwait, with further calls to spurn French products in Jordan and other states.
On Monday, the head of France's MEDEF employers' federation said the boycott, which he described as "foolishness", was clearly bad news for companies already hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
"But there is no question of giving in to blackmail," Geoffroy Roux de Bezieux told broadcaster RMC. "It is a question of sticking to our republican values.
"There is a time to put principles above business."
He said MEDEF supported the government's stance and urged companies "to resist this blackmail and, unfortunately, to endure this boycott", which he said remained "fairly localized" for now.
After teacher Samuel Paty's gruesome murder by a Chechen extremist, Macron vowed that France would never give up cartoons such as those which in 2015 triggered a deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and which Paty showed to his class.
Macron hailed Paty as a "hero" for representing the secular, free-thinking values of the French republic, which include a long-cherished right to mock religion.
"He was killed because militants want to take our future," Macron said at a memorial for Paty. "They will never have it."
Several suspected radicals have been arrested in dozens of raids since the murder, and about 50 organizations with alleged links to such individuals have been earmarked for closure by the government.
France has in recent years been forced to take a hard look at its core values, perceived by many to be threatened by Islam following a string of militant attacks that have killed over 240 people since 2015.
But Macron's stance has fueled tension between France and the Muslim world, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan telling his counterpart to undergo "mental checks" for treating "millions of members from different faith groups this way".
The comments prompted Paris to recall its envoy to Ankara.
