French boycott as Arabs remove goods

DOHA: Calls to boycott French goods are growing in the Arab world and beyond, after France’s President Emmanuel Macron criticised Islamists and vowed not to “give up cartoons” depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Mr Macron’s comments came in response to the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty outside his school in a suburb outside Paris after he had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed during a class he led on free speech.

Yesterday, Jordan’s foreign ministry said it condemned the “continued publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed under the pretext of freedom of expression” and any “discriminatory and misleading attempts that seek to link Islam with terrorism”.

It did not directly criticise Mr Macron, although the French President had also contended that Paty was “killed because Islamists want our future”.

But Jordan’s opposition Islamic Action Front party called on the French President to apologise for his comments and urged citizens in the kingdom to boycott French goods. Such boycotts are already under way in Kuwait and Qatar.

Dozens of Kuwaiti stores are boycotting French products, with social media images showing workers removing French Kiri and Babybel processed cheese from shelves.

In Doha, workers stripped shelves of French-made St Dalfour jams and Saf-Instant yeast in a branch of the Al Meera supermarket chain.

Al Meera and another grocery operator, Souq Al Baladi, said they would pull French products from stores until further notice.