Category Archives: Emmanuel Macron

EU must assert autonomy in face of US-China dominance, says Macron

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French president says US election chance to pursue sovereignty amid rising populism

European leaders must not let up on efforts to construct an autonomous bloc that is capable of resisting the duopoly of China and the US, Emmanuel Macron has said in his first extended response to the US presidential election.

The French president said the US would only respect Europe if it was sovereign with respect to its own defence, technology and currency. Warning that US values and interests were not quite the same as Europe’s, he said: “It is not tenable that our international policies should be dependent on it or to be trailing behind it.” The same need for independence applied even more to China, he added.

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‘Great expectations’: how world leaders reacted to Biden and Harris’s election win – video

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Most world leaders rushed to congratulate Joe Biden on his election on Twitter, and spoke of 'hope' and 'expectation' in later statements.

Biden’s key foreign policy priorities are cooperation in the fight against coronavirus, a commitment to rejoin the UN Paris climate agreement and, more broadly, to promise a change in tone toward traditional US allies. 

Russia and China are yet to congratulate the president-elect, as the outgoing president, Donald Trump, is yet to concede defeat

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EU draft declaration sets out stricter rules on migrant integration

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Contentious statement includes edict on learning language of new home country

Migrants to Europe must learn the language of their new home countries and encourage their children to integrate in the light of the recent Islamist terror attacks, EU governments plan to say in a declaration drafted by France, Austria and Germany.

The contentious draft statement, due to be made by EU home affairs ministers on Friday, is being championed by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who was accused by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of religious persecution after his recent warning of the dangers of Islamist separatism.

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Macron’s task is to show French Muslims they have a place in the republic | Catherine Fieschi

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The president must demonstrate that the secular state – with a subtle dose of multiculturalism – works for them

As a dual citizen of France and Canada, I never cease to be amazed by the depth of misunderstanding there is about French attitudes to religion. France’s shortcomings in its management of diversity are obvious – as are everyone else’s – but it is important to recognise some basic facts before pronouncing on them.

The first is that the principle of laïcité in France – the country’s particular brand of secularism – is more than posturing: it is a lived, sociological fact.

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France considers envoy to explain Macron’s ideas to Muslim states

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Move comes amid backlash over president’s views on secularism and freedom of expression

France is looking at appointing a special envoy to explain Emmanuel Macron’s thinking on secularism and freedom of expression in a bid to quell the anti-French backlash growing in some Muslim countries, officials have said.

The growth in anti-French sentiment also has the potential to deepen the already entrenched conflict between Macron and Turkey over Libya and oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.

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Emmanuel Macron: violence not an acceptable response to cartoons of Muhammad – video

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Emmanuel Macron has defended the right of publishers to depict caricatures of the prophet Muhammad in France. 'I will never accept that someone can justify the use of physical violence because of these cartoons,' Macron said.

On 16 October, a history teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded outside his school near Paris after showing pupils two caricatures of Muhammad as part of a discussion about free speech.

The French president sought to calm anti-French protests in Islamic countries after the reprinting of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in an interview with Al Jazeera. Macron said he 'understands the feelings of Muslims about the caricatures'. But he said it was not his role as president to restrict freedom of expression when it caused offence

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Shooting of priest shocks France as two more held over Nice killings

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Police seal off area and make an arrest after Greek Orthodox cleric is seriously hurt in Lyon shotgun attack

French police were hunting a gunman who shot and seriously injured a Greek Orthodox priest in the city of Lyon yesterday afternoon.

The latest attack came two days after a terrorist killed three people at a church in Nice and two weeks after the beheading of a high school teacher.

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Mahathir Mohamad says his remarks after French attack were taken out of context

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Two-time Malaysian PM criticises Twitter and Facebook for removing his posts after the attack on Nice church

The former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has stood by his widely condemned comments on attacks by Muslim extremists in France, saying they were taken out of context. He also criticised Twitter and Facebook for removing his posts.

Mahathir, 95, sparked widespread anger when he wrote on his blog on Thursday that “Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past”.

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Anti-France protests draw tens of thousands across Muslim world

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Demonstrations held in Pakistan, Lebanon, Palestinian territories and Afghanistan

Tens of thousands of Muslims in Pakistan, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and elsewhere joined protests on Friday over the French president Emmanuel Macron’s vow to protect the right to caricature the prophet Muhammad.

Demonstrations in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, turned violent as 2,000 people who tried to march towards the French embassy were pushed back by police firing teargas and using batons. Crowds of Islamist activists hanged an effigy of Macron from an overpass after pounding it with their shoes.

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Macron says France ‘will not give in to terror’ after Nice attack – video

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The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Thursday that he would step up the deployment of soldiers to protect places of worship and schools after a knife attack in Nice in which three people were killed. Speaking from the scene, a defiant Macron said France had been attacked 'because of our values, our taste for freedom, the possibility there is here to believe freely'

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Emmanuel Macron orders France back into Covid-19 lockdown – video

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France will go back into a nationwide lockdown starting this week to try to contain the Covid-19 pandemic that is again threatening to spiral out of control, French president Emmanuel Macron said in an address to the nation on Wednesday. The new measures he announced – which come into force on Friday – will mean people have to stay in their homes except to buy essential goods, seek medical attention or use their daily one-hour allocation of exercise.

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Turkey threatens legal action over Charlie Hebdo’s caricature of president

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French satirical newspaper depicted Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in his underwear

Turkey has threatened “legal and diplomatic” action against the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo after it published a caricature of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on its latest front page.

The drawing described as “disgusting” by the Turkish leader and Ankara’s announcement that prosecutors have launched an official investigation into the publication have worsened already heightened tensions between the two countries.

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Protests grow across Muslim world against French president Emmanuel Macron – video report

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Demonstrations are growing across the Muslim world against the French president Emmanuel Macron and his perceived attacks on Islam and the prophet Muhammad.

In Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, about 40,000 people were involved in a demonstration organised by the country’s largest Islamist party, while protests took place in Pakistan, Palestine, Iran and Afghanistan.

French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons of Muhammad in September, before the trial of 14 people accused of involvement in a terrorist attack against the publication’s offices in 2015 for publishing the same caricatures.

Macron has defended the publication, pledged to fight ‘Islamist separatists’ and said his country ‘would not give up cartoons’

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France expected to impose four-week national lockdown

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Emmanuel Macron reportedly planning move after record number of new Covid cases

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is expected to impose a new four-week national lockdown to halt the spread of Covid-19, according to French media.

The announcement would follow record numbers of new cases in France that have put pressure on hospitals, and a startling rise in coronavirus deaths.

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Anger towards Emmanuel Macron grows in Muslim world

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Protests take place in several countries against French president in aftermath of crackdown

On the front page of a hardline Iranian newspaper, he was the “Demon of Paris”. In the streets of Dhaka he was decried as a leader who “worships Satan”. Outside Baghdad’s French embassy, a likeness of Emmanuel Macron was burned along with France’s flag.

Rage is growing across the Muslim world at the French president and his perceived attacks on Islam and the prophet Muhammad, leading to calls for boycotts of the French products and security warnings for France’s citizens in majority-Muslim states.

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Muslim backlash against Macron gathers pace after police raids

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Iran calls Paris’s response to teacher’s killing ‘unwise’ amid protests across Muslim world

The backlash against Emmanuel Macron following his insistence that publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad is fundamental to freedom of speech has spread, with angry international protests, cyber-attacks against French websites and warnings that the president’s response is “unwise”.

Muslims in France – and elsewhere – are also furious at what they claim is a heavy-handed government clampdown on their communities in the wake of the killing 11 days ago of the high school teacher Samuel Paty.

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Macron’s clash with Islam sends jolt through France’s long debate about secularism

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President has become a hate figure in Islamic world over response to death of Samuel Paty

On 6 October, when Samuel Paty, a popular history and geography teacher at a school in a quiet Paris suburb, presented a copy of the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that provoked the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine five years ago, he self-evidently had no idea of the tragic consequence for his own life, French society or France’s relations with the Islamic world. What was intended as a classroom exploration of the freedom of thought has turned into a mini-clash of civilisations.

Ten days later, Paty was killed, allegedly by a Russian-born teenager of Chechen heritage, sending an electric shock into France’s long debate about secularism, or laïcité. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, responded by saying France would not “renounce the caricatures”.

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Turkey’s Erdoğan questions Macron’s mental state – video

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Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested Emmanuel Macron, his French counterpart needed mental health treatment, the latest sign of a growing backlash in the Islamic world sparked by Macron’s claim that Islam is in crisis.

Ankara has been particularly incensed by a campaign championed by Macron to protect France’s secular values against radical Islam, a debate given fresh impetus by the murder of a teacher who showed his class a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad

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France recalls ambassador to Turkey after Erdoğan questions Macron’s mental state

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Macron’s office says ‘rudeness is not a method’ after Turkish president calls for counterpart to have ‘mental checks’

France said it would recall its envoy to Turkey for consultations following “unacceptable” comments by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, that suggested his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, needed a mental health check-up.

In the highly unusual move, a French presidential official said the French ambassador to Turkey was being recalled from Ankara for consultations and would meet Macron to discuss the situation after Erdoğan’s outburst.

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EU seeks Amazon protections pledge from Bolsonaro in push to ratify trade deal

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Brazilian president’s stance on deforestation remains stumbling block for South America agreement

Brussels is in talks with Brazil’s far-right nationalist president, Jair Bolsonaro, over commitments on the future of the Amazon as it seeks to persuade Emmanuel Macron and other EU leaders and parliaments to ratify the trade deal the bloc has negotiated with South America.

The ratification of the draft trade agreement between the EU and the “Mercosur” or Southern Common Market free-trade zone – which spans Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina – has been in doubt almost since it was announced last June.

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