On the eve of the trial of the January 2015 attacks and while the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons of Muhammad for the occasion , Emmanuel Macron again defended “freedom to blaspheme” in France.
“Since the beginnings of the Third Republic there has been in France a freedom to blaspheme which is attached to freedom of conscience. I am here to protect all these freedoms. I do not have to qualify the choice of journalists. I just have to say that in France one can criticize the rulers, a president, blaspheme, etc. ”, he declared this Tuesday, September 1st during a press conference in Beirut.
“A President of the Republic in France never has to qualify the editorial choice of a journalist or an editorial staff because there is a freedom of the press to which you rightly hold dear”, added Emmanuel Macron.
“Tomorrow we will all have a thought for the women and men cowardly slaughtered” during the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015, he added.
However, he felt, while stressing that his remark did not apply to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, that this freedom “implies in reverse a common decency, civility, respect” and that with “freedom of expression, there is the duty not to have hate speech ”, citing in particular social networks.
“All that for this”
These 12 caricatures of Muhammad, published first by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005, then by Charlie Hebdo in 2006, showed the prophet carrying a bomb instead of a turban, or even as a character armed with a knife flanked by two women veiled in black.
These images deemed blasphemous and banned by the Muslim religion had provoked strong demonstrations in the Arab world, and contributed to making the newspaper a target of jihadists. Their republication in this week’s edition was also condemned by Pakistan . The French Council of Muslim Worship called on him to “ignore them” , recalling that “nothing ever justifies violence.”
“We will never go to bed. We will never give up ”, justifies the director of the satirical weekly, Riss, in the number whose cover takes up these caricatures, with the title“ Tout ça pour ça ”.
Emmanuel Macron has claimed on several occasions since his election “the right to blasphemy” and to freedom of expression, the most recent about a teenage girl threatened with death in February on social networks for comments hostile to the Islam.
